Challenges and Threats to the Foundations of the Constitutional Order and the Russian Statehood: Political-Legal and Criminological Aspects

Abstract

The author examines the contradictions, challenges and threats to Russia’s national security that can be found in the Constitution of the Russian Federation (the RF Constitution), specifically in Art. 9, 13 and 15 of Chapter 1 and Art. 17 and 20 of the RF Constitution, as well as other normative legal acts. The author’s understanding of the causes for their emergence at the stage of developing the RF Constitution’s draft is presented. It is proven that unless eliminated, these threats could only further escalate and turn into a serious factor that counteracts the future development of Russia as an autonomous, sovereign and independent state. The author presents a political-legal and criminological analysis of these challenges and threats from the standpoint of contemporary geopolitical situation and the tasks of ensuring national security. The criminal nature of American-style globalization is uncovered, which consists in preserving the US dominance in the global processes and transition from the strategy of containing Russia to the strategy of its total destruction. The idea of the necessity to balance the interests of the person, the society and the state is put forward. According to the author, the unlimited freedom of a person in its Western interpretation contradicts the civilization code of the multinational Russian people, and leads not only to the personal social degradation of an individual, but also the degradation of the society and the state, the loss of the social role of state and law. Based on the results of the conducted research, the author concludes that it is necessary to reconsider a number of established erroneous views and ideas concerning the issues under consideration, and to exclude the norms which contain challenges and threats to Russia’s national security from the RF Constitution by adopting a new RF Constitution, as it is the only possible way to eliminate them. To ensure social justice, it is suggested that the moratorium on the death penalty should be abolished, and changes be introduced in Part 2, Art. 20 of the RF Constitution. The author presents criminal law and criminological measures aimed at counteracting the threat to national security and statehood of the Russian Federation.