Interaction of Local Authorities in Solving Issues of Local Importance (Legal Issues)

As a result of the study, the relationships between local governments on resolving issues of local importance were studied, and the norms of the relevant federal law were analyzed. The analysis made it possible to establish reliably that there is an obvious correlation between the methods (models) of the formation of municipality bodies and problems of an organizational-legal nature that arise in the process of resolving issues of local importance, which was reliably established during the study of these problems by the example of approval by the representative body of the budget on its implementation, as well as upon approval of the report on the results of the work of the head of the municipality (head of the local administration). As a result, we came to the conclusion that the current norms of Federal Law No. 131-ФЗ contain such mechanisms that, in practice, can lead to usurpation of power in a municipality and its concentration in the hands of one or more entities, while diminishing the importance of a representative body . The reason for this legal phenomenon is the tendency to abandon the elective methods of forming local authorities. It is, of course, a matter of direct elections with a universal, equal and secret ballot by the population of the municipality without applying such methods as researchers of municipal law call quasi-elections. The negative, in our opinion, trend of federal legislation is the development of restrictive mechanisms in the appointment of the head of the local administration. These restrictive mechanisms are expressed in the fact that Federal Law No. 131-ФЗ establishes a number of methods for appointing the head of the local administration, which, in our opinion, do not comply with the European Charter of Local Self-Government: the method of forming a competitive committee is not democratic and allows you to appoint that candidate municipality, which is affiliated with the head of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation or other officials. Such negative trends observed in Federal Law No. 131-FZ lead to problems of an organizational and legal nature in the process of mutual relations between local authorities in solving local issues and create potential corruption risks, as well as being ineffective. In the framework of this study, ways to solve the identified problems were proposed, including related to changes in federal law. In addition, the concept of the theory of vector organizational and legal ties between the bodies of the municipality was proposed. The actual state of horizontal and vertical organizational and legal relations of bodies of a particular municipal formation is clearly illustrated by the state of the entire branch of municipal law in a given territory. Without the introduction of systemic changes to the Federal Law No. 131-ФЗ regarding the methods of forming the bodies of a municipal formation, it is impossible to completely eliminate the organizational and legal problems of their relations. The most significant practical result of this study is the developed draft law of the subject of the Russian Federation, aimed at minimizing the organizational and legal problems that arise when solving local issues. However, the provisions on amending Chapter 8 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation stipulated by the Law of the Russian Federation on the amendment of the Constitution of the Russian Federation “On improving the regulation of certain issues of the organization and functioning of public authority” of March 11, 2020 distort the vertical and horizontal ties between local governments in connection with the consolidation of standards that allow public authorities to participate in the formation of municipal bodies. This constitutional norm will lead, in our opinion, to an increase in organizational and legal problems in the relationship between local authorities and local issues.