From the Sovereignty of the State to the Sovereignty of the People: the Constitutional and Legal Experience of the Asian and Russian countries

Abstract

The possibilities of applying the study’s main conclusions concerning the relationship between sovereignty of the state and sovereignty of the people are very relevant. The issues affecting the "rights to sovereignty" of individual nationalities or state parts are prevail. In this paper the concept of sovereignty is considered, a comparative description of the mechanisms for the implementation of sovereignty in the Russian Constitutions and some Asian countries are provided, and the main normative legal acts regulating the foundations of the Russia state sovereignty are designated and structured. Using the methods of scientific knowledge and the method of system analysis, it has been established that the state, from the standpoint of modern constitutional and legal science, is sovereign only if it consolidates and realizes the will of the people in practice. Sovereignty is the most important characteristic of the state power, but it should express the sovereignty and supremacy of the people as well. The system of the state power and administration should not only possess the properties of democracy, but in fact correspond to it. Sovereignty is possessed not only by the state, but also by the people, by virtue of the right to self-determination.