No religion may be established as the State religion or a compulsory religion. Religious associations are separated from the State and are equal before the law. The Constitution of the Russian Federation has supreme legal force and is direct-acting and applies throughout the territory of the Russian Federation. Laws and other legal enactments adopted in the Russian Federation must not contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation. Organs of State power, organs of local self-government, officials, citizens, and associations thereof are obliged to observe the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the laws.
Laws are subject to official publication.
Unpublished laws are not applied. Any normative legal enactments affecting human and civil rights, freedoms and duties cannot be applied unless they have been officially published for universal information. If an international treaty of the Russian Federation establishes rules other than those stipulated by the law, the rules of the international treaty apply. The provisions of the present chapter of the Constitution form the basic principles of the Constitutional system of the Russian Federation and cannot be altered except by the procedure laid down by the present Constitution. No other provisions of the present Constitution can contradict the basic principles of the Constitutional system of the Russian Federation.