Law-Making Process in the Russian Empire: Urban Planning Policy and Legislation

The paper presents the evolution of law-making process in the Russian Empire through the prism of urban planning legal regulation. It covers the period of uncodified and codified legislation with the period up to the appearance of the Digest of Laws of the Russian Empire (all its editions) and the Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire (PSZRI). In these materials, the author identified about 300 historical normative acts related to the regulation of urban development from the era of Peter the Great to 1825 (the period systematized in the PSZRI), and a number of major codified acts of the 19th — early 20th century. The analysis of their content and form formed the basis for conclusions about the quality of law-making process in the Russian Empire.

Based on the analysis of normative material covering construction, architectural legislation, legal norms in the field of organization of urban development, the author considers the characteristic features of pre-revolutionary law-making process in encouraging the creation of normative acts, conceptual techniques of legal technology, systematization characteristics. Subjects of law-making process are singled out. Normative acts are classified according to different grounds, a parallel is drawn with the modern hierarchy of normative acts, and historical features of their typology are highlighted. The author draws conclusions about the inaccurate classification of the main identified acts (charters) as codes, about the prevalence of legal idealism in the concept and policy of urban planning regulation. The source of fixing public relations in the form of a legal norm is the monarch’s will. In the research area it is based on the idea of an ideal city, the concept of which has evolved from the idea of regularity to a rational capitalist space. It was supplemented by proposals from the professional community at the end of the period.

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