The Role of the CIS Model Legislation in the Legislative and Law Enforcement Practice of the Commonwealth Member States

In the current political and legal realities caused by the difficult international situation, the development of integration processes between friendly countries, primarily within the framework of the Commonwealth of Independent States, is gaining an important role for Russia. Such processes are also taking place in the field of improving the national legislative systems of these states, the tendency towards convergence of which is realized through the formation by the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS of the model legislation of the Commonwealth members. A large number of adopted model laws on various issues of the life of the state and society give rise to the need to assess its relevance in the legislative and law enforcement activities of the CIS member states, to identify those areas in which they are most relevant. The purpose of the study is to determine the role of the CIS model legislation in the legislative and law enforcement practice of the Commonwealth member states, to develop a legitimate and most optimal model for their implementation in the national mechanism of legal regulation. In this regard, the following tasks have been set: to analyze the practice of applying the CIS model legislation in the legislative activity of the Commonwealth states, as well as to study the law enforcement practice in this aspect and determine the legal positions of the courts, which are formed taking into account the CIS model legislation. The research methods were general scientific methods, such as analysis, synthesis, induction and deduction, description, comparison. In the process of research, special methods of scientific knowledge were also used, such as system-functional, formal-legal, comparative-legal and others. The recommendatory provisions of the CIS model laws are applied in the formation of national legislation of most CIS member countries, and they are most in demand in the legal regulation of the environmental and information spheres. The conducted study of a significant number of court decisions showed that the CIS model legislation is extremely in demand in the law enforcement practice of Russia, which is developing ambiguously. The formation of a uniform judicial practice could be facilitated by clarifications from the highest judicial bodies regarding the conditions and limits of application of the CIS model legislation. The author’s position on this issue is proposed, which consists in the fact that the legal provisions of the model laws should be ranked according to their functional role as methodological and regulatory. The position is substantiated, according to which the specified legal acts can be used by the courts only for methodological purposes and cannot be applied as directly applicable in the territory of the CIS countries that have not implemented their provisions in national legislation.