The State Interest: the Sovereign’s Power by Default

Abstract

Sovereignty is a dialectically developing phenomenon. In the classic sense, sovereignty belongs to the supreme power, for example, represented by the head of state, or if the center of publicity is the people, the sovereignty of the people (the popular sovereignty) is meant then. Nevertheless, in modern history, even just a person, a personality, a citizen has begun to be endowed with sovereignty. One way or another, with all the differences in the perception of sovereignty, the term itself has always been associated with power, and this neither provokes any disputes nor casts any doubts. But the points about the limits of this power and whether it has boundaries in the political and legal space are both debatable and rather painful, because they maximally confront us with reality, where life itself, our existence and vital values turn out to be dependent on the owner of sovereignty. This article attempts to reveal the construct of sovereign power. By the power holder — the sovereign, the author of the article understands the head of state as a single subject of political and legal relations. The nature of the sovereign’s power is elucidated through the state interest determined by the state of emergency.