Abstract: 2014 - 2015 faced a new stage of the municipal reform that considerably improved the legal regulation of local self-government authorities. Over the past two years of execution of the municipal unit's right to set their own procedure for electing their leaders, regional authorities have gathered experience that needs to be thought over and analyzed. Based on the analysis of election of municipal units' leaders out of candidates presented by the competition commission in 2016 - 2017 in the Kirov Region, the authors of the article analyze diverse and contradictory experience of electing municipal units' leaders and describe reasons that prevent from an efficient use of the aforesaid institution. In the course of their research the authors have used such methods as historical, comparative law, formal law methods and logical methods such as analysis and synthesis. In conclusion, the authors state that, on the one hand, regional authorities are interested in creation of a certain mechanism for electing leaders that they can control, mostly, for regions and urban districts, and for the purpose of conducting economic and social transformations without actually taking into account the opinion of the population and representational body, and, on the other hand, opportunity of a constituent to define the way of electing a municipal unit's leader creates social tension and disrespect of the deputy because it in fact push them aside from participating in the higihest authorities of municipal units. 

Abstract: The subject of this research is the legislative regulation and practice of realization of public religious events in the Russian Federation and Italy. Examining the current Italian and Russian legislations, the author attempted to classify and systematize various religious events and their legal regulation. The work presents specific examples of application of various legal regimes, as well as legal precedent pertaining to exercise of the right to organize and hold religious events. Several proposals are made on improvements to the current legislation and borrowing of foreign experience for Russian legislation. The author concludes on the need to improve Russian legislation, namely a number of positions of the Federal Law No. 54-FZ “On Assemblies, Meetings, Demonstrations, Marches and Picketing”. The author believes that there is a need to remove the existing collision by introduction of changes to the Federal Law No. 125-FZ (clause 5 of the Article 16), which would exclude the referencing norm to the Federal Law No. 54-FZ, and amend the 54-FZ in the clause 2 of the Article 1with the following formula: “with the exception of public religious services, other religious rituals and ceremonies (including prayer and religious gatherings) held in public places that require measures for ensuring public order and safety of both, the participants of the religious ceremonies, as well as other citizens. Such events should be held in the order established by the current federal law”.

Abstract: The subject of this research is the legislative regulation and practice of realization of public religious events in the Russian Federation and Italy. Examining the current Italian and Russian legislations, the author attempted to classify and systematize various religious events and their legal regulation. The work presents specific examples of application of various legal regimes, as well as legal precedent pertaining to exercise of the right to organize and hold religious events. Several proposals are made on improvements to the current legislation and borrowing of foreign experience for Russian legislation. The author concludes on the need to improve Russian legislation, namely a number of positions of the Federal Law No. 54-FZ “On Assemblies, Meetings, Demonstrations, Marches and Picketing”. The author believes that there is a need to remove the existing collision by introduction of changes to the Federal Law No. 125-FZ (clause 5 of the Article 16), which would exclude the referencing norm to the Federal Law No. 54-FZ, and amend the 54-FZ in the clause 2 of the Article 1with the following formula: “with the exception of public religious services, other religious rituals and ceremonies (including prayer and religious gatherings) held in public places that require measures for ensuring public order and safety of both, the participants of the religious ceremonies, as well as other citizens. Such events should be held in the order established by the current federal law”.

Abstract: The article considers the main stages of formation of the Russian Federation as a temporal state. The article presents a historical and legal review of development of secularity in Russia in the historical periods starting from 1701 till the present time. The author notes that the Constitutions of the USSR and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic didn’t legitimate a temporal state as a characteristic of social order. For the first time this term occurred in the 1993 Constitution of the Russian Federation (though the USSR Law № 1689-1 “On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organisations” of October 1, 1990 and the Law № 267-1 “On Freedom of Religion” used the term “secularity” when describing the state system of education). The author applies the following methods: the specifically-historical method, the comparative-legal, the formal-juridical and the political-legal methods. Normative acts of the Soviet period didn’t use the term “secularity” but formally legalized the temporal character of the state. At the same time, in reality the state was atheistic and in particular periods of history took tough repressive measures against religious organisations (1917 – 1920 – the first shootings of the clergy and the mass robberies of churches, 1921-1923 – confiscation of church values, 1929 – 1931 – dispossession of the kulaks, 1937 – 1938 – mass terror, 1958 – 1964 – the Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign).