Statement on the resumption of the activities of the Public Constitutional Council

Novaya Gazeta, 25.11.2020

The Public Constitutional Council, which we established in January 2020 in response to the President’s initiative to amend the Constitution of the Russian Federation, warned at the same time that the adoption of the proposed amendments to the Basic Law of the country would lead to further “resetting to zero” of all public institutions.

The draft laws that are currently being submitted to the State Duma and prepared in development of the adopted constitutional amendments, and often going beyond them, strengthen authoritarian tendencies and the irremovability of power, eliminate the separation of powers and deprive the judicial system of the remnants of independence, deprive society of the ability to control the activities of state structures, and belittle the already pitiful remnants of the welfare state.

This dooms the country to long-term economic and social stagnation, weakens it in the foreign policy arena and strikes, among other things, on the prospects of confronting the coronavirus pandemic.

These circumstances put on the agenda both the monitoring of the virtually anti-constitutional legislation, and preparation for the convocation of the Constitutional (Constituent) Assembly in the long run, which should consider and adopt the new Constitution of Russia as a democratic country, in which the rights of every person to a free and dignified life are implemented in deeds rather than on words.

The Public Constitutional Council, in connection with the above, announces the resumption of its activities in order to make a feasible contribution to this historical work for the fate of Russia. We invite all concerned citizens to participate in the activities of the Council.

Founders of the Public Constitutional Council:

Yevgeny Gontmakher

Grigory Yavlinsky

Vladimir Ryzhkov

Leonid Nikitinsky

***

Leonid Nikitinsky, Co-Founder of the Public Constitutional Council and columnist of the Novaya Gazeta newspaper:

– At the meeting of the Council members, Chairman of the Yabloko party Nikolai Rybakov told what had been done in the spring and summer. The proposals, alternative to the presidential amendments, were collected in nine packages and integrated in the draft Constitution of Free People. The proposed amendments dealt with the institutions of the presidency, parliament, elections, the judiciary and certain issues such as the prohibition of torture, problems of war and peace, and others. The amendments were submitted for discussion in regional legislative assemblies, where Yabloko is represented, and the point of the work is at least that an alternative project exists.

Now we are witnessing a kind of “casting” of State Duma deputies and members of the Federation Council to introduce “in the development of the updated Constitution” the bills that are directly targeted at infringing on the political rights and freedoms of Russians, enshrined in the inviolable Chapters 1 and 2 of the Constitution. Proposals such as introduction of a permission-based procedure for educational activities (the meeting participants dedicated a separate statement to it) represent an attempt to directly revise the Constitution of the Russian Federation that has been in force for over a quarter of a century.

Deliberately or not, the participants in the “casting” also try to demoralise society as a whole and legal experts who are simply overwhelmed. The renewal of the methodical – as far as there are enough resources – and patient work of the Public Constitutional Council presupposes a cold-blooded opposition to the process of “throwing shit into a fan”, and the Council invites experts and legal scholars to participate in this first of all.

The very procedure of preparing amendments to the Constitution, as well as voting on them, undermined their legitimacy, and everyone (including the participants in the “casting”) understands that their fate will not be long. The Public Constitutional Council is trying to look into the future further than the conventional gentlemen [Senator] Andrei Klishas and [State Duma deputy] Pavel Krasheninnikov [who introduced many bills in the “development of constitutional amendments”, such as on the guarantees of immunity to the President who resigns and a revoked bill on a simplified procedure of taking children away from their families].

Source