Legal issue: the constitutionality of the international treaty, which has been signed on 18 March 2014 but has not yet entered into force, between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Crimea on the admission of the Republic of Crimea into the Russian Federation and on the creation within the Russian Federation of new subjects – the Republic of Crimea and the federal city Sevastopol.
Ratio decidendi: the treaty in question conforms to the Constitution of the Russian Federation. It is also emphasized in the judgment that the Constitutional Court decides solely on the issues of law and does not assess the political expediency of concluding international treaties. In fact, the admission of the republic of Crimea into the Russian Federation is envisaged as an element of application of the treaty in question prior to its ratification, on which in accordance with public international law the action of treaties shall depend. At the same time, the possibility of application of an international treaty pending its entry into force - if the treaty itself so provides or if the negotiating States have in some other manner so agreed - follows from para 1 of Art 25 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.
