Trends and prospects for the development of legal regulation of organization and activities of public councils as the subjects of the public control in the Russian Federation

Introduction. The issues of determining the legal status and organizational aspects of the activities of public councils as the subjects of public control represent one of the most pressing areas for the development of scientific knowledge in the field of functioning of civil society institutions. Theoretical analysis. Based on the approaches to the theoretical definition of the legal nature of public councils that exist in the science of constitutional law today, we can conclude that these institutions can be considered from the point of view of power relations, in particular, as public authorities, bodies of popular representation, public administration bodies. Empirical analysis. The main feature of the normative legal regulation of the activities of public councils is the fragmented nature of consolidating their legal status in various legal documents. At the same time, an urgent problem is the lack of acts at the federal level that would establish the legal status and law-making competence of public councils under local governments. Results. It is proposed to normatively consolidate the ability of citizens to create territorial public councils as autonomous subjects of public control at the municipal level, which would act outside the institutional link to local governments, but would have the same rights as other subjects of public control activities.