The Basic Law of Russia

The thematic exhibition "The Basic Law of Russia", dedicated to the 30th anniversary of the Constitution of the Russian Federation (December 12), is open from October 31 to January 7 in the legal information reading room (room 207b).

The current Constitution of the Russian Federation was adopted by natiowide vote on December 12, 1993. If we take as a starting point the first Constitution in the history of the Russian state, adopted in 1918, then the 1993 Constitution is the fifth constitutional text in the 100-year history of the country. The Constitution of the Russian Federation has been in force for thirty years, which is much longer than the average life of many democratic constitutions. The new Russian Constitution, freed from much of the Soviet baggage, returned religious freedoms, the right to private property, political and ideological pluralism, formalized parliamentarism, the presidency, and constitutional justice. The principles of separation of powers and free economic activity, the superiority of human rights over public interests were rehabilitated, and the norms of international law were directly incorporated into the Russian legal system. Another feature of the Constitution is such a quality as stability. In comparison with any current Russian law, which is regularly amended, the Constitution of the Russian Federation of 1993 is a very conservative document. For the entire time of its existence, only five amendments were made to it. The last amendment was made after approval during the all-russian vote on July 1, 2020.

Among the documents presented at the exhibition are normative legal acts, comments, collections of articles and theses, materials of reports and scientific and practical conferences, seminars and round tables, monographs, abstracts of dissertations, bibliographic reference books on constitutional law, dictionaries on constitutional terminology and analysis of articles of the Constitution – more than 80 exhibits in total.

The exhibition is intended for researchers, students, postgraduates, teachers of law schools and anyone interested in the problems and history of the formation of constitutional law and justice in Russia.

The exposition consists of the following sections:

• The history of the birth of the current Constitution of Russia
• The Russian Constitution in development: changes and amendments
• The essence, meaning and features of the Constitution of the Russian Federation
• Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation: implementation of the human rights function
• Constitutional foundations of the powers of the President of the Russian Federation
• Comparative legal analysis of the constitutional law of Russia and foreign countries
• Bibliographies of constitutional law and dictionaries on constitutional terminology and analysis of articles

The opening hours of the exhibition corresponds to the library’s opening hours.
Entrance to the exhibition is available by the library ticket or ticket of the library's social and cultural center.

Phone for inquiries:  (+375 17) 2932728

Useful links:

The Constitution of the Russian Federation

Legislative power of the Russian Federation

Executive Power of the Russian Federation

Judicial power of the Russian Federation