COMMISSIONERS FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE RIGHTS OF SMALL INDIGENOUS PEOPLES IN THE SUBJECTS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION: THE LATEST TRENDS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INSTITUTE

Natalya Alekseevna Filippova Associate professor /Сургутский государственный университет

Abstract: The institution of the Commissioner for the Rights of Indigenous Minorities in the subjects of the Russian Federation is a unique legal phenomenon that reflects the peculiarities of Russian public law. The emergence of the institute at the turn of the XX – XXI centuries is associated with the right of the subjects of the Russian Federation to advance legal regulation. The initially developed variety of regional models, which can be conditionally reduced to four main ones, reflected the different views of regional communities about the place of this official in the system of state power of the subjects of the Russian Federation and about the expediency (inexpediency) of the specialization of regional human rights institutions. The period of the first two decades of the twenty-first century is characterized by an increased interest in the institute from both the federal legislator and the indigenous communities. On the one hand, the process of unification of the status of regional commissioners for the rights of indigenous peoples has begun due to the increasingly active regulation of its position by federal legislation. On the other hand, this institution defines its specific functions in the system of other institutions of representation of indigenous peoples, which includes both traditional and modern forms of public and public representation. Finally, the new tasks of nation-building and the constitutional reform of 2020 in Russia allow us to predict new trends in the development of this institution, due both to the modernization of other institutions of indigenous peoples ‘ law (for example, the institution of belonging to an indigenous person), and the desire to provide legal protection to other traditional ethnic minorities, that is, to ethnic minorities that are not considered indigenous by the legislation.

Keywords: national minorities, traditional ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples, Commissioner for the Rights of Indigenous Minorities, traditional representation of indigenous peoples, public representation of indigenous people