EVOLUTION OF ALGERIAN PUBLIC PROCUREMENT LEGISLATION: FROM FRAGMENTATION TO CONSTITUTIONALIZATION

Relevance. Algerian legislation on public procurement has come a long way in its normative and substantive development, reflecting not only internal economic transformations in the country, but also the legal importance given by the state to such an area of legal relations as public transactions. The culmination of this legal and regulatory development was, firstly, the inclusion of provisions on public transactions in the Algerian Constitution and, secondly, the adoption of Organic Law «On the establishment of general rules for public procurement», which for the first time, at such a high level, regulated the system of public procurement. These circumstances, as well as the current instability of the legal provisions, make it necessary to examine them objectively. Main purpose. An analysis of the key stages in the evolution of Algerian public procurement legislation, as well as an examination of the problems that have accompanied this development for almost sixty years. Problems under consideration. The article touches upon the problem of development of Algerian legislation in the field of public procurement, examines its peculiarities, as well as the influence of the French legal tradition on the formation of Algerian law on public procurement in the light of the constitutional reform. Taking into account the fact of proclamation of Islam as the state religion, special attention is paid to the issue of correlation of the current legislation on public transactions with the prescriptions of the Sharia. Methods used. Within the framework of this study, historical-legal, comparative-legal, formallegal methods, analysis of normative-legal material. Conclusions. The evolution of Algerian legislation in the field of public transactions is associated not only with a gradual change in the form of the rules themselves, but also with fundamental transformations of the political and economic system of the Algerian state, the country’s exit from the French protectorate and its autonomous integration into the system of international economic relations. Since gaining independence, Algeria has been striving to acquire its own legal model, including in the field of administrative and economic relations. To a large extent, this model, as well as the entire national legal system, formally, continues to be based on French law, however, in fact, the legislator is trying to introduce into it its own national component, based on the cultural and religious identity of Algerian society. The problem of adequately reflecting such an identity in the field of public procurement, led to the transformation of the economic goals pursued by the country’s leadership in different periods of time. And, if initially, the legal acts regulating the sphere of public transactions were distinguished by a pronounced socialist orientation, now socialist protectionism has given way to a liberal model of economic administration, which has adopted both the ideas of the free market, based on the principles of fairness and competition, as well as the basic postulates of Islam, as a regulatory system and state religion in general.