Press Release, 16.03.2020

Deputies of the Yabloko party in the legislative assemblies of six regions – Moscow, St. Petersburg, Karelia, the Pskov and Astrakhan regions and the Khabarovsk Territory – introduce a new package of amendments to the Constitution. It is dedicated to improving the guarantees of human and civil rights and freedoms. The text of the bill in Russian is here.

Yabloko proposes to fix a single retirement age for men and women in the Constitution, which should be 60 years. At the same time, the retirement age of women will be reduced by two years for the birth of each child. It is proposed to recognise pension savings as private property, which can be inherited.

It is proposed to add a provision to the Constitution on the creation in Russia of an investment fund for future generations, where a 25 per cent of all income from exports of natural resources will be allocated. This money will be used to form and replenish individual savings accounts of citizens.

“The model when officials determine who needs social assistance and how much, and most of it is spent on administration or corruption schemes, does not work today,” says Ivan Bolshakov, Deputy Chairman of Yabloko and Executive Secretary of the party’s Constitutional Commission. “Hence such a scale of poverty in our country. The best option is to give money directly to people, [transfer it] to personal savings accounts, bypassing the bureaucratic system.” Bolshakov also explained that special law would further establish the categories of recipients of funds and their intended use, for example, money can be spent on higher education, treatment or purchase of housing.

It is also proposed to fix in the Basic Law the obligation of the state to treat children, including those suffering from rare (orphanic) diseases at the expense of budget funds and create an alimony fund.

In addition, the Constitution must guarantee that the minimum wage provides a decent standard of living for the employee and his/her family, low-income citizens should receive housing for three years, and the availability of services and infrastructure is guaranteed to people with disabilities.

The new proposals of Yabloko also relate to the implementation of certain civil and political rights of citizens. Thus, the state should be prohibited from acting as a founder, owner and shareholder of mass media, in order to guarantee equal access to mass media for all political parties.

The government should ban use of digital technologies and personal data to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen so that to ensure the secrecy of correspondence. “The current Constitution protects “the secrecy of correspondence, telephone conversations, postal and telegraphic communications”, but modern means of communication drop out of this list, and this is often used by both private companies and the state,” Ivan Bolshakov explains. According to him, the right to privacy and confidentiality of correspondence should be universal, therefore, Yabloko proposes this supplement the constitutional norm, taking into account the development of digital technologies.

Yabloko also proposes that termination or suspension of the activities of public associations should be recognised in the Constitution as an exceptional measure, which is applied only by court and on an exhaustive list of grounds related to incurring harm to society. Also, blocking of web-sites is allowed only by a decision of the court and on an exhaustive list of grounds.

It should be noted On March 12, Yabloko held an all-Russian action against Putin’s usurpation of power. In over 50 regions, party activists picketed their legislative assemblies, which were considering Vladimir Putin’s amendments to the Constitution.

Yabloko’s regional MPs introduced to six legislative assemblies a new chapter of the Constitution on the electoral system, political parties and the rights of the opposition, as well as a package of amendments to the Constitution devoted to improving guarantees of human and civil rights and freedoms.

Yabloko proposes reducing the presidential term to four years, limiting the powers of the head of state to the list provided for by the Constitution, introducing the election of members of the Federation Council, empowering the Federation Council to nominate Public Prosecutor General, and giving the State Duma the right to nominate Prime Minister, allow deputies make a vote of no confidence in individual ministers, expand the composition of the Constitutional Court, return the Supreme Arbitration Court, introduce the election of court chairpersons by the judges, expand the right to a jury trial and introduce the election of justices of the peace.

In addition, the party prepared amendments to ban private military organisations in Russia, transfer to the contract principle of formation of the army, expand the rights of the Federal Assembly to formulation of the country’s foreign policy, and recognise torture as a grave crime.