Procurator Office in the Russian State Mechanism: Theoretical, Historical and Normative Aspects

Abstract

Although the Russian Procurator Office supervision has the centuries-old history, there is still no consensus in doctrine on its status and place in the state mechanism. The legal enactments of the Russian Empire and the USSR as well as current legislation in force do not certainly refer the Procurator Office to either agencies of state power or to other state agencies, and this fact is estimated by various scholars as a cue to doctrinal discussion. A lot of inconsistent arguments have been expressed about the Procurator Office’s disposition within a presidential, legislative, executive, judicial and even ‘supervisory-controlling’ branches. Such a diversity of opinions cannot be justified by ideological pluralism and is unacceptable from the perspective of legal studies, since the correct classification of a legal phenomenon can be only gained by means of due definition of its specific and stable characteristics Procurator Office, evidently, possesses with respect to its centuries-old history. The accurate consideration of this issue has not only theoretical, but also practical significance. Firstly, if the Procurator Office was declared to be agency of state power, it would be at once inserted in the relations within separation of powers principle. Secondly, it affects the constitutional stature of the institute having impact on the general patterns and the framework of the further development of Russian supervisory institution. The author has addressed the issue in respect of three dimensions: basic provisions of the legal theory, historical transformations of the Procurator Office within system of the Russian State and the normative (legislative) trends. As a result, the position has been elaborated that the longestablished legislative approach may be reckoned not as the silence of the legislator, but as a deliberate decision on the status of the Procurator Office as a supervisory institution sui generis. Addressing this issue, three factors have been identified and taken into account: derivative legal status of the Procurator Office (determination of its powers at the discretion of the legislator); historically determined systemic relationship between Procurator Office and the institution of supreme power; supervision over the legality and validity of the authority exercised by other state bodies as a distinctive feature of the Procurator Office in the state mechanism of Russia.