Constitutionalism is the basic sourse of legal education

Abstract

The author’s approach to the theory and practice of constitutionalism in the system of Russian legal education is presented. The very concept of constitutionalism is considered in this case on the basis of the unity of scientific, doctrinal, legal implementation and educational, methodological principles. This presupposes the need to substantiate new approaches both to the structure and content of the educational course on constitutional law, and to the organizational, legal, and methodological issues of its teaching. In this regard, the main guideline of the domestic legal education system should not be a narrow sectoral one (criminal security, corporate civil law, etc.), but a constitutional model of fundamental training of legal personnel. This presupposes the recognition of the ideas of constitutionalism as the basic principle of the system of teaching legal disciplines, bearing in mind the unity of legal theory and legal practice, lawmaking and law enforcement, considered on the integrative basis of legal positivism and the sociology of law, sociocultural, axiological characteristics of the legal existence of the individual, society and state. 

At the same time, attention is drawn to negative trends associated with derogation of attention to the national system of constitutional law, deformation with the inclusion of Russia in the Bologna process of domestic philosophical and ideological principles of legal education, and the transition to a two-level system of training legal personnel (bachelor’s — master’s degrees). In this regard, specific directions for improving the teaching of constitutional law are proposed, taking into account the national characteristics of the philosophical and ideological foundations of domestic legal education, and the feasibility of transition to a constitutional model of training legal personnel is substantiated.

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