Municipalities and their types in light of the constitutional reform of the fundamentals of territorial organization of the local self-government

Abstract

This article is dedicated to the classification of municipalities and clarification of the term “municipality” in the current legislation of the Russian Federation on the local self-government. Special attention is given to the problems and trends of territorial organization of local self-government at the present stage of the constitutional-legal development of the Russian Federation. The subject of this research is the constitutional norms and other normative legal acts that regulate the issues of organization of local self-government in the Russian Federation and its constituent entities, as well as legal provisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and scientific publications on the topic. The methodological framework is comprised of the logical, comparative, statistical, specific-sociological, and special-legal (formal-legal, technical-legal, interpretation) methods of cognition. It is established that the territorial organization of local self-government in specific municipalities and regions does not always fully correspond with the federal legislation. The author suggests distinguishing between the municipalities of urban, rural, and mixed types, unitary multitarian, simple and complex, universal and special. The recommendations are formulated for the improvement of legislation in terms of terminological apparatus of the local self-government and legal consolidation of types of municipalities. The conclusion is made that the constitutional reform of the local self-government is a consequence of the current trend of shifting away from the settlement principle of territorial organization of local self-government, as well as from the two-level model of territorial organization of the local self-government.