Hans Kelsen's Normative Theory as a Basis for Understanding the Legal Nature of the Constitutional Court Acts

Abstract

The paper is devoted to certain provisions of the Hans Kelsen’s pure doctrine of law (normativism). Based on an analysis of legal and doctrinal sources, the author attempts to find the most accurate concept for the status of decisions of the constitutional court as a judicial body of constitutional control. The identification of the theoretical foundations for a clear definition of the boundary between rule making and law enforcement is one of the most important problems of law. The situation of the constitutional control bodies is of particular interest. The status of the constitutional court as a judicial body of constitutional control implies that its acts are generally binding on the entire territory of the state. The question of the legal nature of these decisions, which in Russian science initially belonged to the number of debatable ones, deserves attention. Longterm disputes, however, have not yielded positive results; have not revealed the fundamental foundations on which it would be possible to develop the doctrine of the guarantees of the constitution. Thus, the decisions of the constitutional court are equated with both law enforcement acts and sources of law that exist in the form of a precedent or even in the form of a special normative act.