Abstract: The subject of the research is the legal norms that regulate the place of municipal authority in the system of public authority in Russia. The object of the research is the legal relations in the sphere of organisation and functioning of municipal authority as well as their relationships with the state authority. The author of the article have analyzed the relationship between municipal authority, state authority and public authority. She pays special attention to the provisions of the Constitution and self-government legislation and describes the problems of the practical implementation of Article 12 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and possible solutions. The methodological basis of the research includes recent achievements and findings. In the course of the research the author has used general philosophical and theoretical methods (dialectics, systems approach, anaysis, synthesis, analogy, deduction, observation and modelling), and traditional law methods (formal law and comparative law). The main conclusions of the research is the author's statement that Article 12 of the Constitution has an excessive imperative nature. Taking into account the fact that it is impossible to change the law at this point, the author suggests to use opportunities provided by the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and to view relevant provisions as the ones that define specific relationships between municipal and state authority while local self-government activities cannot be replaced with state activities.