Modern Challenges to Effective Functioning of Local Self-Government (On the Example of Saint Petersburg)
Authors: Semenov V. A. , Ereshkin V. V. 
Published: April 2023

In recent history the concept of “public authority” was collective and was not fixed in legislative and normative-legal acts. Under the Law of the Russian Federation on amendment of the Constitution of the Russian Federation dated 14.03.2020 № 1-FCL “On improvement of regulation of separate issues of organization and functioning of public authorities” local self-government bodies were eferred to public authorities. According to Article 132 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation “Local self-government bodies and public authorities are part of a unified system of public authority in the Russian Federation and interact to most effectively solve problems in the interests of the population living in the respective territory. Article 35.1 of Federal Law № 131-FL of 06.10.2003 “On General Principles of Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation” gives elected deputies of a municipal representative body the right to form political factions for the exercise of their powers. The activities of such factions are established and legitimized by a normative legal act of the municipality. As a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of the Russian Federation, proc-lamation of democratic values and democratization of society, political parties and other public organizations began to appear. New actors and leaders, were able to organize a collective, turbulently increasing action against the government, which immediately after the end of the protests, mobilized the protest mood of the electorate, which in the elections in 2017, 2019 in Moscow, 2019 in St. Petersburg held in local government in Moscow and St. Petersburg “independent” municipal deputies from the territorial executive government in representative bodies of local government, thereby creating pockets of political and social tension. An important aspect of the political struggle for the degree of influence on political stability, namely the change of power in the municipalities of Svetlanovskoye, Smolninskoye, Ligovka-Yamskoye, Liteiniy District, Vladimirskiy District of St. Petersburg, was the result of an intraparty struggle in the power structures. The intraparty struggle between the executive and legislative branches of power for the degree of territorial influence in St. Petersburg is a characteristic feature of federal cities, with their elites constantly fighting for the maximum concentration of power in their hands. As a result of the insufficient control of the electoral process by the territorial executive bodies of state power in St. Petersburg, an additional opportunity for opposition forces to exercise sufficient quality control of the electoral process for compliance with legislative requirements. As a result of this situation, the representative bodies were formed by independent non-systemic deputies. The pluralism of opinions that emerged in local government became particularly important, since without agreement for decision-making the work of representative bodies of local government was impossible, and consequently the exercise of the constitutional rights of citizens to exercise local government and the legitimate functioning of local government in addressing issues of local importance and the execution of certain state powers was impossible. The existence in the legal field of an internally highly conflictual representative body generates social tension in society, political destabilization and, as a consequence, a general distrust of public authorities in general, since public authorities are directly involved in the formation of local government in St. Petersburg, where the execution of local government authority is associated with such features as a high level of education of citizens, population density, the degree of involvement in electoral processes In 2015, an additional procedure for recruiting heads of municipalities was introduced - the selection of candidates for the post of head by a competitive commission, where half of the commission’s members should be representatives of regional authorities. It was expected that in this way the selection of heads of municipalities would become more controlled. In 2020, the amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation consolidated the “incorporation” of the local level into the system of state (public) power, finally depriving municipal authorities of formal autonomy from the state.

   The purpose of the article is to establish the causes of incapacity of the representative body of local government of St. Petersburg after the municipal elections of 2019, the search for possible ways to create conditions for further functioning of the municipality in the new conditions of pluralism of opinions among the new convocation of municipal deputies, the study of the causes of the created situation, the search and proposal of possible ways to solve the issue of adaptation of the representative body to the new conditions of functioning.

   Based on the research conducted, the authors declare the necessity to take measures to respond to the public authorities aimed at finding opportunities and creating conditions for the performance of powers by the representative body, deputies and heads of the municipality in the new conditions of functioning of local self-government.