Territorial Structure of Municipal Government at the Present Stage

The paper analyzes federal constitutional laws concerning the entry into the Russian Federation of its new constituent entities — Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions — in terms of regulating territorial organization of local self-government. The author analyzes upcoming transformations, makes and justifies proposals regarding the need to expand the system of municipalities in new constituent entitties of the Russian Federation by including settlements as its local self-government territories. The implementation of such a provision will comply with Federal Law No. 131-FZ dated 06.10.2003 «On General Principles of Organization of Local Self-Government in the Russian Federation» and will allow the population of rural and other settlements to participate more actively in local self-government.The paper describes the principles of the territorial basis of local self-government and clarifies the possibilities of their preservation in the conditions of the ongoing transformations of local self-government, due to the introduction of amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 2020. The author characterizes the procedures fixed in the legislation for ensuring changes in the boundaries of municipalities, transformation and abolition of municipalities, analyzes the norms of relevant laws of constituent entitties of the Russian Federation and municipal legal acts specifying the procedure for solving territorial issues of local self-government, illustrates the process of consolidation of municipalities on the example of the Moscow region. It is noted that in the Russian Federation there is a three-level legal regulation of the municipal-territorial structure, including federal and regional legislation and municipal legal acts. This makes it possible to determine substantive powers of public authorities in this area of local self-government and establish the procedure for their enforcement. Taking into account the results obtained, draft Federal Law No. 40361-8 «On general principles of organization of local self-government in the unified system of public authority» is analyzed in order to identify the degree of stability of the existing system of territorial organization of local self-government. The author summarizes that adoption of the enactment under consideration will not entail significant changes, its principles and will not change the procedure for resolving issues of territorial organization of municipal power.