The sources of constitutional law of the Russian Federation (from the legal side) show the form of expression of the instructions in which they are communicated to society. The concept indicates where to look in order to find the right rule of behavior, how to apply it, in which situations to be guided by it and so on. Thus, the sources of Russian constitutional law constitute "the official repository of the holders of existing norms." They represent an external, official form of expression of norms, the acceptance of documentary formal fixation by the authorities of objective law and guarantees of its provision.
The most common sources of Russian law are regulations. These documents have their own distinctive features. So, normative acts are:
1. Acts that come from and formulated by state power.
2. Documents that are accepted by officials (public authorities) within their competence.
3. Acts that are amended and approved in accordance with the special law-making procedure for adoption, publication and entry into force.
4. Documents having a written form (written law) and subject to official publication in relevant publications.
5. Acts that are hierarchically subordinate to each other.
The undoubted priority in the entire structure of regulatory documents is the country's Constitution. It is endowed with the status of the "Basic Law".
Given the existing diversity, sources of Russian law can be divided into certain categories. Moreover, the classification of norms can be carried out in different ways.
So, the sources of Russian law are divided into several groups in accordance with the subject of law-making activity and legal force. These categories include: declarations, laws, constitutions, normative acts of executive bodies and the country's head, acts of constitutional control bodies , provisions adopted by local governments, parliamentary regulations.
In accordance with the territory of operation, sources of Russian law are divided into:
1. Acts that are valid throughout the country.
2. Provisions, the force of which applies only to the territory of a certain subject (region, city of the federal level, region).
3. Acts in force within a specific municipal formation (district, city, other settlement).
The Constitution is the main source of law in Russia. The Basic Law is endowed with the highest legal force. It should be noted that the Constitution for constitutional law is not only a source, but also a direct codified law of the industry. In other words, for this area, the Basic Law has, among other things, the same meaning as the Civil Code for the field of civil relations, the Criminal Code for the field of criminal procedure relations and so on.
The Constitution is considered the source of constitutional law in full. In other words, absolutely all articles and regulations formulate the norms of the industry in question. In this regard, the Constitution is characterized by specialists as an “unconditional source of current constitutional law,” in contrast to by-laws, federal laws and other documents acting as sources only if they contain constitutional-legal content.
Thus, the Basic Law determines the self-determination of the relevant legal industry as autonomous in the whole system. Along with this, the branch of constitutional law is given leading importance in the whole system, and the Constitution leads the whole system of legal sources.