Prospects for consolidation of civil and expert participation in the legislative process at the regional level

Abstract

In this article, the author analyzes the variety of lists of subjects of the right of legislative initiative in the Russian regions. The author conducts an analysis of the constitutions (charters) of all regions of the Russian Federation, uses formal legal and comparative methods. According to the results of the study, the author notes that at the regional level, the right of legislative initiative is granted to 46 categories of subjects, which are classified into 4 groups: 1) state authorities and officials; 2) local self-government bodies and their associations; 3) judicial authorities and prosecutor's offices; 4) citizens and public associations. The latter group reflects representatives of the civil and expert community and includes 13 categories of subjects. Based on the results of the analysis of scientific works, generalization of the emerging legal practice, the author proposed the concepts of "civil participation in the law-making (legislative) process" and "expert participation in the law-making (legislative) process". Summarizing the Russian and foreign experience of civil and expert participation in the legislative process, the author confirms that citizens easily support ideas for changing legislation (vote for them), but at the same time have difficulties in converting such ideas into draft laws. With this in mind, in order to increase the professionalism of the preparation of the bill and the openness of its discussion, the author proposed a two-stage model of civil and expert participation in the legislative process, which involves: 1) at the first stage, the development, taking into account the real needs of the draft law, carried out on the principle of professionalism, by representatives of the expert community and (or) public associations; 2) at the second stage, a public discussion of the draft law developed in order to obtain the support of citizens. The author focuses on the need to implement a public discussion of the bill using digital technologies.