Positive Discrimination and Its Application in the Economic Sphere

The problem of business’ governmental support in the light of constitutional equality principle is researched in this article. The mentioned principle is a cornerstone of person’s legal status in the modern democratic states. It is perceived as a prohibition of discrimination; however it also outlaws unjustified privileges for some group of people.What are unjustified privileges and how those privileges can be justified? Those questions are raised in the article. There are 2 main concepts of equality principle: liberal concept of opportunities equality and the concept of results equalities. The Russian Constitution states the second model.Consequently, the so-called reverse discrimination is possible. This kind of discrimination implies the creation of legal privileges for some group of people. The desire to support some groups, not to restrict them is in the heart of this model.Distinguishing the positive discrimination and ordinary discrimination is quite difficult problem and there were a lot of judicial disputes on the issue. However, in economic field this problem is even more difficult because of the reasons described in this article. On the one hand, the efficiency must be achieved; on the other hand the constitutional requirement of equality must be fulfilled.The two mentioned values rather often contradict each other. It requires to work out the constitutionally based principles of governmental policy in this field. It was suggested: public importance of privileges recipient’s business, reasonableness, targeting, competitiveness.