Regime-Based and Legal Regulation of Review and Approval of Budgets

Regime and legal regulation of the consideration and approval of budgets in the Russian Federation has undergone significant changes in recent years, and, at the moment, it can be characterized by a number of specific features. Firstly, after the approval of the draft law on the federal budget, such a document acquires the status of a normative legal act — a federal law for the federal budget and a normative legal act of a different level for budgets of other levels of the budget system of the Russian Federation, while it is limited to the next financial year and planning period. Secondly, the peculiarity of the process of reviewing and approving the budget is associated with the presence of the “zero reading”procedure, which does not have legislative regulation in the norms of Russian law, but since 2002 has been actively used in practice, and, in its essence, is an integral stage of the review process and approval of the budget not only of the federal budget, but also of other budgets of the budget system of the Russian Federation. In this regard, at the moment, the most relevant direction for improving the budgetary and legal regime for reviewing and approving the budget seems to be improving national legislation in terms of enshrining “zero reading” in the provisions of the Budget Code of the Russian Federation as an integral part of the process of reviewing and approving the budget. Thirdly, the regime-legal regulation of the consideration and approval of budgets involves the establishment of general rules for approving a draft law in a stable situation, as well as the establishment of special rules if it is impossible to apply the traditional procedure for approving a draft budget law. The purpose of such a special budgetary and legal regime is to ensure stability and continuity of the budgetary process, regardless of internal or external factors, until a regulatory legal act of the appropriate level is adopted.