Years have talk have come true. The terms of the president and parliament will be extended.
Photo: Alexander Miridonov
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President Decides to Amend Constitution
// The president and the Duma will work longer
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced yesterday that amendments will be made to the Russian Constitution. They will be the first changes to the Yeltsin constitution in the 15 years of its existence. Changes are proposed in the length of the terms of the president and members of the State Duma (to six and five years, respectively) and the requirement will be introduced that the government give annual account to the Duma of “the results of its activities on questions raised directly by the parliament.”
Medvedev has proposed changes to article 81, part 1 (“Presidential Authority”) and article 103 (“Formation of the State Duma”) of the Constitution. Larisa Brycheva, presidential aide and head of the president’s legal department, said that the amendments proposed by the president do not require referendum approval and will be introduced through the procedure set out for the passage of federal constitutional laws (two-thirds of the votes in the State Duma and three-quarters of the vote in the Federation Council). The constitutional amendments will come into force after they are approved by the legislative authorities of no less than two-thirds of the subjects of the federation.
Medvedev is insisting that this is “not a constitutional reform, but a correction to the Constitution” since it is an “elaborating amendment” that “does not touch upon the political or legal essence of the existing institutions.” “The reforming itch is absolutely inappropriate for the Basic Law,” the president said.
Regardless of the president’s terminology, this is the first attempt to change the Constitution adopted by referendum in December 1993. Until now, all changes to the text have exclusively concerned the list of subjects of the federation as some of them have been combined. Medvedev, unlike his successor, never made a public promise to preserve the Constitution in its present form. Former president and current prime minister Vladimir Putin repeatedly stated that no changes to the Yeltsin constitution would be made.
Discussion of changes to the Constitution was especially widespread toward the end of Putin’s second term as president. The subject at that time was changes to the length of the presidential term or retraction of the clause that prevented one person from occupying the office of president more than twice in a row. However, at a congress of the United Russia Party, Putin stated that “I consider it incorrect to change the Constitution for a specific person, even if I trust him unconditionally.”
The Yeltsin constitution did not hinder Putin from carrying out political reforms. In the eight years of his presidency, the rules for the formation of the Federation Council and the election of the State Duma were changed and the institution of the special presidential representative was created with specially federal districts. But those innovations did not violate the Basic Law. The only time the constitutionality of Putin’s actions was seriously questioned was in the spring of 2004, when direct election of the head of the subjects of the federation was eliminated. Tyumen resident Vladimir Grishkevich and members of regional initiative groups filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court. In December 2005, the court ruled that the procedure for the vesting of power of the heads of the subjects of the federation was not in violation of the Constitution. The court’s decision indicated that the procedure of the formation of bodies of state authority of the subjects of the federation was not directly regulated by the Constitution and the president’s right to nominate candidates for the office of head of a region cannot be seen as a violation of the principle of separation of the branches of power, since the final decision on the vesting of power of the governor is made by the regional legislative body, which is a “sovereign representative organ.”
Nor is the lack of mention in the Constitution of the president’s authority to make those changes an impediment. The court found that the federal legislator has the right to invest the head of state with the right to nominate candidates for head of regions. The court thus practically reinterpreted its own decision of 1996 on the constitutionality of a number of articles in the charter of Altai Territory that spoke of the requirement that the head of the territory be elected. The court found that its previous decision “cannot be used in full measure” to interpret the new procedure since the legal positions formed “in the previous system of legal regulation” can be elaborated on or changed “taking into account specific social and legal conditions.”
It is possible that specific social and legal conditions have changed now, so the Constitution will be “corrected.”
The president did not indicate in his address to the Federal Assembly when the constitutional amendments will be adopted. There is no hurry. Brycheva made it a point to specify yesterday that the propose changes in terms would not apply to the current president or members of the current Duma. That is to say that the changes will apply to members elected to the Duma in 2011 and to the president elected in 2012. The Constitution does not prevent a person who has been president and then left the office at the end of his term from running again.
There are bigger questions about the amendments to article 103, according to which the government would give an annual account to the Duma. Medvedev said nothing about the format of that account in his address. Therefore, it may be a technical development of the current practice that members of the government periodically appear before the Duma, or it may indicate a substantial shift in the balance between the branches of power, which, in turn, may require other amendments to the Constitution. It would be much simpler to make the political decision on it after the first constitutional amendments are passed.
Yury Chernega, Gleb Cherkasov
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 06, 2008
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