Constitutional law: the field of law or a specific basic subsystem being a skeleton of national system of law

Abstract

The article critically analyzes an approach to the interpretation of Constitutional Law as the field of national law and a subsystem of public law still popular in post-Soviet and national Constitutional scholarship. The author provides arguments on methodological inadequacy of traditional post-Soviet legal criteria of the division of law into branches and institutes. The availability of the subject of legal regulation (homogenic societal relations regulated by a number of legal norms) and the method of legal regulation being an instrument of the influence on societal relations being regulated by those, in each branch of law. It highly exceeds the borders of legal regulation of state governance homogenic relations being the subject of Constitutional law in the past. The scope of methods applied by it is much wider than the traditional public law imperative method built on the relations of power subordination.  Therefore, in addition to the abovementioned method, Constitutional law frequently applies the dispositive method based on the equality of relations between the coordinated subjects on the contrary to subordination. Moreover, Constitutional law does not limit itself to the scope of national, internal law of the country. Its certain provisions have a supranational status bearing the ties of Constitutional law with International law. The article concludes that basing on its ontological nature, Constitutional law occupies a wider scope than it has traditionally been viewed and differentiated.  It establishes basic, starting principles for the functioning and development of all the most important areas of societal relations linked primarily to the basics of legal status of the individual and the role of the state in its assurance. Constitutional law makes a specific basic subsystem of the national legal system and provides a fundamental basis for all of its branches as well as acts as a system-building pivot for the whole national legal system. Article received 13.03.2019