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The Union of Right-Wing Forces (SPS) and Yabloko do not want
to force the delicate process of their merger. However, they sat
down at the same table to account for their legislative activities.
Boris Nemtsov and Grigory Yavlinsky last met at the same forum
nine years ago. However, on April 6, at a conference on "Russian
Law: Strategies and Development on the Path to a Civil Society",
the leaders of the two right of centre Duma factions promised
that the situation would be different in future. They were obviously
not referring to the merger of the URF and Yabloko.
Participants in this conference concluded that freedom, law
and property rights are not fully developed in Russia.
Analysing the current situation in legislation, Nemtsov said,
"To cut a long story short, everything is very bad in this field."
However, Nemtsov and many others were somewhat encouraged by the
adoption of Chapter 17 of the Civil Code, which concerns the purchase
of land. The right certainly agrees to compromises, especially
regarding land reform. However, according to Nemtsov, liberal
ideas should be fully implemented in this area.
An attempt to strip Duma members of parliamentary immunity failed,
to the great disappointment of conferenceparticipants.
Nemtsov mentioned three possible ways of reforming the military,
which currently intimidates its own conscripts more than any enemies.
It is practically impossible to cancel the draft this year, as
neither deputies nor the hesitant president have enough courage
to do this. It is also quite possible that this issue will not
be debated at all for some time, and that this silence will be
masked by preparations for impending militaryreforms.
According to the right-wing parties, mandatory military service
could be cut radically to six or eight months. The gap will be
filled by contract servicemen. The SPS also proposes a radical
reform of public service and of salaries for state officials.
Nemtsov proposes that the prime minister's salary should be $10,000
a month, and that an “ordinary” minister should receive $8,000
a month. According to the calculations of the URF, this would
beenough to stop corruption.
Of course, Nemtsov mentioned the NTV network situation. He noted
that at a meeting of the coordination board of the SPS and Yabloko,
an announcement was made on this topic: it is necessary to prevent
NTV from being transferred to state control, which could happen
if Gazprom-Media obtains a controlling interest.
Then conference participants started to discuss reforms of the
judiciary. The SPS is concerned about the independence of courts,
as some of them are prepared to exchange justice for money.
Nemtsov said his faction had developed amendments to the law
on prosecutor's offices. According to these amendments, the task
of prosecutor's offices concerns the procedural administration
of investigation and supportfor court prosecutions.
The leader of Yabloko Yavlinsky divides reform of the judiciary
into four parts, with rather general formulations: consolidation
of the judiciary as an institution, protection of civil rights
and liberties, financial support and politicalindependence.
The current events in telecommunications have made Yabloko propose
the idea of a special law on television. Yabloko believes that
this law should ban purely state-run TV companies. Yabloko also
hopes to submit a bill on public monitoring of the special services
to the Duma in the near future.
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