PARLIAMENTARISM IN THE POPULAR REPRESENTATION SYSTEM

The paper provides an analysis of the relationship between the concepts of parliamentarism, popular representation, representative democracy, and public representation. It evaluates the views of different authors on the nature of parliamentarism as a state-legal institution and on its place in the system of the people’s administration realized through elected representatives. In the author’s opinion, parliamentarism is an institutional mechanism for representing the interests of the people and of individual population groups in legislative bodies. The constitution adopted by the people empowers those bodies to express in laws the consensual will that is meant to be a permanent, legal, objectified representation of the will of the people (in a national parliament) or its part (in parliaments of constituent entities of the federation). The author sees the merit of parliamentarism in providing representative state administration by a specially authorized elected body within the established legal limits on behalf of, and for, the people. Russian parliamentarism is proved to be a form of popular representation and an indispensable mechanism of representative democracy as a constitutional form of popular sovereignty.