Конституциональные мифы и конституциональные иллюзии: о героическом прошлом и лучшем будущем (Constitutional Myths and Constitutional Illusions: About Heroic Past and Better Future)

                RANEPA




THE RUSSIAN PRESIDENTIAL ACADEMY
OF NATIONAL ECONOMY
AND PUBLIC ADMIN I STRATI О N




          Igor Bartsits

          Constitutional Myths and Constitutional
          Illusions
About Heroic Past and Better Future








        Publishing House “Delo”
        Moscow • 2018

УДК 34
ББК 67

Б26






   Igor Bartsits, Doctor of Law, Professor, Director of the Institute of Public Administration and Civil Service (IPACS), the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA)

   Барциц, И.Н.
Б²⁶ Конституциональные мифы и конституциональные иллюзии: о героическом прошлом и лучшем будущем (Constitutional Myths and Constitutional Illusions: About Heroic Past and Better Future): на англ. яз. / И. Н. Барциц. — М. : Издательский дом «Дело» РАНХиГС, 2018. — 60 с. — (Научные доклады : государство и право).

   ISBN 978-5-7749-1404-3


   This working paper provides insight into the essence, content and destiny of constitutional myths and illusions as “load-bearing elements” of constitutional order, government system and political regime. Special attention is paid to the analysis of individual constitutional myths and illusions, such as the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, concept of social contract, nation-wide referendum, values of separation of powers, open government, etc., as well as examples of their embodiment in the Constitutions of Russia, China, the USA, France, Venezuela, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Ukraine, etc.






УДК 34
ББК 67

   ISBN 978-5-7749-1404-3





    © Russian Presidential Academy of the National Economy and Public Administration, 2018

            Contents







The Positive Component and Purpose of the “Myths” and “Illusions”...................................................5

What we get wrong and how to get it right........................12

Origination and Destiny of Constitutional Illusions in Russia . . . 23

Constitutional Illusions and Myths of Russia in the Period of their Dismantling.............................................34

Post-Soviet Constitutional Mythology.............................42

Constitutional Myths Are Left Behind! Have Constitutional Illusions Ceased to Exist?...................49

List of Literature ............................................. 55

            The Positive Component and Purpose of the “Myths” and “Illusions”









                                     Heavy on every sovereign head There lies a People’s misery, Save where the mighty Law is wed Firmly with holy Liberty.
                                     O Monarchs, ye are crowned by will And law of Man, not Nature’s hand. Though ye above the people stand, Eternal Law stands higher still... The first bowed head must be your own Beneath Law’s trusty canopy Then Peoples’ life and liberty Forevermore shall guard your throne.
                                                    (“Ode to Liberty” by Alexander Pushkin, 1817)

                                    “.You know, Moishe’s son Avrom must already be in America. If you meet him, say hello to him from me. Tell him, his father is a clever man — he died shy of Constitution! And our Motl has disappeared — nobody knows, where he might be. Many of ours disappeared like him. Some of them ran away, others were killed, and still others saunter through the snows of Siberia, working, chained to their barrows. And they don’t care, driving a hard bargain — they want a Constitution! Once for all! And that’s it!.. No more news. Keep well and give my very best to each of ours personally. I am not going to America. I don’t like your America! A country, where a newspaper is called “paper”, where Bluma becomes Jenny, and a bridegroom is found to


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Constitutional Myths & Constitutional Illusions

                                  be a trigamist... I am sorry to say this, but one should bung off such a country! From your letter I see that, if we had a real Constitution, as we understand it, we wouldn’t need any America! We would have our own “America”, even better than yours. Don’t grieve, Yankel! I wish I had a piece of gold and Krushevan had a pain as great, as the Constitution that we will have, if God allows this to be so!.

                     Your Friend Yisroel”
                     Sholem Aleichem ¹
                                           “From the Tailor’s New-Year Letter to His Friend in America” (1907)

Key for understanding the terms “myths” and “illusions” when used in the context of constitutional matter is the fact that they do not have any negative valence of fantasies or ungrounded hopes. Unlike their definitions typical of other areas, in the area of humanitarian knowledge they are not confined to the declarativity and fictitiousness of the phenomena that have transformed into such myths and illusions. The positive attitude towards constitutional myths and constitutional illusions is based on understanding that they do not necessarily conflict with the truth or reality. Even when social or legal scientists have to admit that such myths or illusions are groundless, they quite often point out their usefulness for the state and law. Sergei Guriev in his book “Myths of Economics — Misconceptions and Stereotypes that are Reported by the Media and Politics” uses as an epigraph the words of John F. Kennedy, “.. The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.””
    Unlike him, we should proceed to covering this matter from the perspective of Henry Tudor, according to whom, “We can make a start by disposing of a widely held but misleading preconception. In common usage, the term “myth” stands for any belief that has no foundation in fact. A myth, we are told, is a fi ction or illusion, the product of fantasy and wishful thinking rather than the result of any serious attempt to tackle the world in which we live; and political myths are simply fi ctions or illusions about ¹ ²

¹ Sholem Aleichem. There are no news ... Tevye the Milkman. Stories / Trans. from the Jewish. Moscow, Publishing House “Fiction”. 1969. Pp.438-439.

² President John F. Kennedy. Commencement Address At Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, June 11, 1962// Public Papers Of The Presidents Of The United States: John F. Kennedy, 1962. P. 234. Cit. by: Guriev S. Myths of the economy: misconceptions and stereotypes that are spread by the media and politicians. Moscow, United Press, 2010. P. 19.

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