The article deals with the debatable issues of the organization of federal, regional and local public authorities as a means of ensuring human rights and freedoms. The extent to which public power, as a means, corresponds to its purpose - the recognition, observance and protection of human and civil rights and freedoms, which are the highest value in society, is a criterion for determining the degree of its democratic character and the legality of the activities of state authorities. This criterion should be the basis for the study of all forms of the state: forms of government, forms of state structure and political regime. Particular importance is attached to the principle of subsidiarity of the powers of regional authorities in relation to local authorities, and federal authorities in relation to regional ones. The principle of subsidiarity means a certain way of building a pyramid of power, opposite to the principle of centralism. Various concepts of sovereignty, both popular and state, and their relationship to the concept of human rights are also considered. It is concluded that the assessment of the organization of public power only from the point of view of its system and structure does not reveal its constitutional content, determined by the purpose of the state, according to which the person, his rights and freedoms are the goal of the state(all branches of state power), and the form of government, the form of state structure and political regime, based on the principles of separation of power (division of power horizontally and vertically) and subsidiarity power is the means of state power. The shortcomings of Russian federalism, to a large extent, are explained by ignoring these principles of the organization of public power, which are a guarantee of the inviolability of its democratic foundations. Neither democracy nor civil society can be imposed artificially: the prerequisites for them must mature within the framework of a society based on these principles. The state should not interfere with this process.