On the issue of legal regulation and citizen survey practice as a form of popular participation in local government[К Вопросу О Правовом Регулировании И Практике Проведения Опроса Граждан Как Формы Участия Населения В Осуществлении Местного Самоуправления]

The article analyzes the RF federal legislation, the legislation of the RF constituent entities and the municipal legal acts of municipal entities in the territory of the Russian Federation, which regulate the survey procedure in the context of local government. The specific feature of this article is the authors’ own experience, which they share in this work, of such a survey organization, conducted in the city of Ekaterinburg in autumn 2019 on the issue of a religious object location, and of using the citizens’ rights to participate in municipal community, as a tool to relieve social tension on urgent problems of popular concern. The authors analyze the current regulatory definition of the pool of survey participants, that is, those who can take part in the given survey, considering, inter alia, the possibility of foreign citizens’ participation in the poll. The issues of campaigning regulation during the survey are also considered. The authors have found that, in essence, the municipal legal acts of municipal entities in the territory of the Russian Federation use the analogy of law, preserve the conceptual framework of legislation on elections and referenda up to the complete reproduction of legal norms when regulating the campaigning issue during the survey. Drawing a conclusion, the authors consider the need to adopt a model law for the constituent entities of the Russian Federation with the aim to establish common legal approaches and to fill gaps, in other words, to harmonize the entire regulatory framework.