The Establishment of a Judiciary with the Power of Constitutional Review According to Catherine II of Russia and its Repercussions in France (1766–1774)

The article is devoted to the main provisions of the draft institution in the Russian Empire of constitutional review, which are set out by Catherine II in her Instruction for deputies of the Standing Committee. As the author notes, the ideas of the Russian Empress, largely borrowed from Montesquieu, were relevant in France of the Old Order era. This is due primarily to the fact that they could be used by members of parliaments and their supporters in the struggle to preserve the privileges of the higher courts of the kingdom. In addition, to the provisions of the project Diderot wrote comments in which he posed and tried to resolve important issues related to the institution of constitutional control. The author focuses on such issues as the concept and content of the fundamental laws of the state, the hierarchy of normative legal acts, the grounds and mechanisms for limiting sovereign power, and the essence of political representation.