Forms of direct municipal democracy: Upcoming transformations

Introduction. The subject of the study is the novelties of the draft federal law “On the general principles of organizing local self-government in a single system of public authority” in terms of the legal regulation of direct municipal democracy. It is distinguished by a signifi cant reduction in the existing forms of direct participation of the population in the implementation of local self-government, while not off ering any new ones. Though in the course of the development of the state and society in Russia over the past two decades, new democratic mechanisms and tools have appeared. Empirical analysis. The authors analyzed the current legislative norms regulating the forms of direct democracy at the level of local self-government and provided a legal assessment of the reduction of their list in the given draft law. The researchers revealed the necessity of preserving the institution of voting on the recall of elected persons of local self-government, which is at the same time one of the types of municipal legal responsibility, in the draft law. In search of additional forms of direct democracy at the local level, the institution of public control was considered. Understanding its goals and objectives through the prism of local self-government indicated that it can act as an eff ective tool for the population in assessing the activities of municipal authorities. Results. The study concludes by proposing to supplement the forms of citizens’ participation in the implementation of local self-government, enshrined in the named bill, with a new form of “public control over the activities of local self-government bodies”.