Contradictions of Strategic Planning Normative Regulation in Modern Russia

Abstract

The Federal Law “On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation” has been in force in Russia for a period of 10 years, since 2014. The legislation establishes the basic provisions of the strategic planning system. As the preceding decade has demonstrated, the formation of a formally prescribed system in practice has only been achieved partially due to the general nature of the law, which allows for discretion at the stage of law enforcement. The subject of this study, conducted using analytical, systemic, and comparative legal methods, is the development of normative regulation of state strategic planning in Russia. This paper presents a review of legislative initiatives to amend the Federal Law “On Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation”. It also analyses a more modern regulatory act, the Fundamentals of State Policy in the Field of Strategic Planning in the Russian Federation, approved by the Decree of the President of the Russian Federation in 2021. Furthermore, it reveals the inconsistency of the current regulation of legal relations arising in connection with the use of strategic planning in public administration. Finally, the role of the so-called decree lawmaking in the context of the evolving system of strategic planning is considered. It is concluded that the by-law does not fully compensate for the imperfections of the legislative act due to, among other things, the analogous general nature of the legal norms. Moreover, the identified contradictions between the norms of the law and the by-law will hinder the formation of strategic planning, creating conditions for arbitrary application of legal norms. Therefore, it is necessary to eliminate these contradictions as soon as possible. A promising avenue for further investigation is the pursuit of ways to address the inconsistency of regulation in the domain of strategic planning and the establishment of clearly defined enforcement mechanisms.