Учет исторических и иных местных традиций при проведении муниципальной реформы как механизм обеспечения конституционной ценности единства народов России

Abstract

On the basis of a constitutional and legal analysis and an assessment of the ongoing municipal reform, the article substantiates the thesis that taking into account historical and other local traditions in the territorial organization of local self-government functions as a legal mechanism for ensuring the constitutional and traditional spiritual and moral value of the unity of the peoples of Russia. From a historical perspective, the development of local self-government is described as a pendulum-like movement between reforms and counter-reforms – from communal and settlement-based forms and zemstvo institutions to the Soviet model of local state power and the post-Soviet establishment of municipal autonomy, which culminated in the settlement reform of 2003–2014. The contemporary single-tier model and the trend towards enlarging municipal entities are interpreted as a new counter-reform leading to the centralization of the local level and the erosion of the communal and settlement-based foundation on which everyday practices of interethnic concord, public participation and trust in public authority are formed. It is concluded that the preservation and development of the settlement level of local self-government, with due regard to historical and other local traditions, is a necessary precondition for the genuine, rather than merely declarative, safeguarding of the unity of the multi-ethnic people of Russia and for maintaining a balance between traditional spiritual and moral and liberal-democratic constitutional values.