The Budgetary Autonomy Principle as a Legal Basis for Disputes Resolution in cases of underfunded mandates

Abstract

The budgetary autonomy principle secures spending powers (spending rights) of federal and subfederal authorities in Russia. Unfortunately, remedies to protect these rights are not provided by Russian law. Substantial problems arise in practice when one level of government imposes certain requirements (mandates) on another: there is often a great mismatch between the cost of mandates and the amount of funding provided for fulfilling them. The focus of the article is just on imbalance between mandate costs and available financial resources. In the article, the author explains that the remedy to protect the right to spend may be deduced from the budgetary autonomy principle. Refs 12.