The senator took part in the international conference, Constitutional Identity and Universal Values: The Art of Balance.
Chair of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building Andrey Klishas has spoken at the international conference, Constitutional Identity and Universal Values: The Art of Balance.
The event was organised by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation as part of the 9th St Petersburg International Legal Forum and was attended by more than 120 heads and judges of constitutional courts and equivalent bodies from more than 40 countries on all continents, representatives of supranational human rights bodies and intergovernmental organisations.
Klishas, who is the Federation Council representative at the Constitutional Court, noted at the end of the conference that issues such as the establishment and preservation of a country’s constitutional identity and the definition of its boundaries never lose their relevance.
In Russian jurisprudence, constitutional identity as a judicial doctrine was first formulated by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation in 2015, he said.
Furthermore, at this stage, there are no fundamental theoretical studies defining this term, yet its meaning is more or less clear, Andrey Klishas noted.
“Constitutional identity is a combination of several elements – constitutional norms and principles, as well as the meaning given to them through interpretation by the country’s constitutional justice body – which help define the specifics of the internal national legal order of a particular state at a certain historical stage. The constitutional identity concept can also be viewed as a political doctrine stipulating the need to uphold national interests in the context of universalisation and globalisation,” he pointed out.
“The significance of the constitutional identity concept lies with the fact that, while outlining the most general requirements that limit the arbitrariness of the content and the application of any other legal provisions, including international agreements, it thereby establishes a framework for the entire national legal regulation as a whole,” he emphasised.
At the same time, a state, while recognising the jurisdiction of international bodies, can reserve the right to create a mechanism for verifying the decisions made by supranational bodies, to ensure that such decisions comply with its constitutional identity and public political consensus, he said.
Changes in national legal systems proposed by international bodies, in particular, by the European Court of Human Rights, which do not take into account the national constitutional identity, cannot be applied imperatively, the senator pointed out. “In cases where the prevalence of one constitutional value over another needs to be considered, including when determining the acceptability of restricting one right or freedom for a fuller realisation of another, supranational bodies cannot form universal rules. Establishing a balance of constitutional values is the responsibility of national authorities. ”
“There is an objective need to protect the national cultural, moral, and spiritual values and prevent the destruction of national constitutional identities, not only in Russia, but also in the states of Western and Eastern Europe, South America (Argentina), and Asia (India), which is evidenced by the constitutional reforms carried out in individual states and decisions of constitutional justice bodies around the world, in which the concept of constitutional identity is being developed,” said Andrey Klishas.
He said the practice used by the European constitutional justice bodies is the most illustrative, formed along with EU integration. “Analysing this practice, it is important to note that, not least of all, their courts associate the constitutional identity concept with the concept of state sovereignty and national values,” the parliamentarian explained.
“Considering this practice, we can note the particular importance of national law and order systems preserving their inherent features of historical and legal development and the specifics that, combined, comprise that country’s constitutional identity. This does not rule out the need to form a model of balanced interaction between national and supranational law. Russian lawmakers derive from the need to uphold national interests while complying with international law,” he concluded.