Mechanisms of Functioning of the Dissenting Opinion in the Constitutional Court: Case of Russia

The Constitutional Court is one of the most important democratic institutions that many countries have adopted in the process of democratization. However, as a result of the subsequent rollback, many of them returned to the authoritarian system or are in the process of such a transition. Despite the loss of many democratic elements, the constitutional courts have not disappeared, but the changed situation has forced them to adapt to new realities. The fact that judges have the right to publish their dissenting opinions is regarded as evidence of the independence of judges, but the vast majority of studies, both of the institution of dissenting opinions and of the Constitutional Courts as a whole, are concentrated around liberal democracies, and the significance of such an institution in an undemocratic regime has not been thoroughly investigated. Using the analysis of qualitative and quantitative data, the features of writing dissenting opinions by judges of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation were analyzed. The paper presents an analysis of the collected database of dissenting opinions of judges of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation, legal and regulatory instruments, the media and semi-structured expert interviews, attempts are made to determine the existing limitations in writing dissenting opinions.