Legal issue: the constitutionality of the requirement, according to which a regional register of offices of the State civil service should be composed with due regard to the structure of State bodies, names, categories, and groups of offices established by the federal register, if in practice it is understood as a requirement of identity of two registers and of the formation of the structure of regional State bodies by analogy with the structure of the respective federal State bodies?

Ratio decidendi: the Court pointed out that the legal regulation of the State civil service of the subjects of the Russian Federation falls within the joint competence of the Russian Federation and its subjects. The federal legislator must ensure a balance between their lawful interests. Therefore, the subjects of the Russian Federation may independently – within statutorily provided limits conditioned by objective non-coincidence of functions performed by the federal State bodies and regional State bodies - institute some or the other offices of the State civil service.   The federal legislator may require rational uniformity of the legal regulation of the offices of the State civil service at the federal level and the level of subjects of the Russian Federation. This enables citizens to get oriented within the system and the structure of the bodies of State power, and the civil servants themselves – to carry out intragovernmental cooperation. However, the interpretation of the contested provision as the one obliging to literally emulate the provisions of the federal register leads to an incommensurate restriction of constitutional powers of regions.  

Based on this, the Court ruled that the contested provision did not conform to the Constitution just partially – to the extent that it was understood as the duty to ensure the identity of the system of the State civil service of the subject of the Russian Federation with the system of the federal State civil service.  Accordingly, the Court obligated the federal legislator to provide in a federal law for clear criteria, enabling one to determine the contents of the regional register of offices.