Press Release, 15.10.2020

The Moscow City Duma rejected two bills with amendments to the Constitution submitted by the Yabloko faction. The bills were proposed to be adopted as a legislative initiative and sent to the federal parliament – the State Duma.

The Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma submitted a package of nine bills “The Constitution of Free People” developed by the Yabloko Party, the Public Constitutional Council and the best constitutional lawyers in Russia.

Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction,  presented two bills from the package “On equality of parties in a court hearing and responsibility for torture” and “On issues of war and peace” at the meeting of the Moscow City Duma on 14 October. The split of votes was as follows: 14 and 7 deputies, respectively, voted for the draft laws, and 25 deputies and 26 deputies voted against.

“Our amendments had the effect on the United Russia [faction of the ruling party] as an exploding bomb, which means they are extremely relevant. The Moscow City Duma has now become a place for discussion, and here the democratic representatives have the opportunity to discuss the most important issues for the country. Our amendments are a political alternative to Vladimir Putin’s course for the country. Our task is to show that society has a choice,” Maxim Kruglov, head of the Yabloko faction in the Moscow City Duma, stressed.

The first draft law proposed to supplement Article 123 of the Constitution with a clause where torture is called a grave crime. The allegation of torture should be the basis for the immediate initiation of a criminal case. Until the investigation into the torture is completed, the verdict cannot be passed, Yabloko’s amendments run. In addition, this bill proposes to constitutionally establish the equality of the parties’ rights to present and examine evidence in court. The existing judicial practice often violates the equality principle.

The second bill, entitled “On issues of war and peace,” is proposed by Yabloko to supplement the Constitution with Article 71.1, which provides for a ban on the activities of private military organisations (such as private military company Wagner) in Russia. The participation of Russian citizens in armed conflicts as mercenaries is prohibited and represents a crime, the article runs. It is also proposed to abandon the recruitment of the army in peacetime, completely switching to the principle of voluntary admission of citizens to military service under the contract.

The proposed amendments to Article 101 of the Constitution vests the duty to monitor the peaceful nature of Russia’s foreign policy and the justification for the use of the armed forces with the Russian parliament – the Federal Assembly.

The amendment to Article 102 adds to the jurisdiction of the Federation Council the decision on the operational use of the armed forces outside the country. At the same time, the resolution of the Federation Council on the use of the armed forces should contain an indication of the territory and the period of such use. In addition, the President will have to report to the Federation Council for the use of the army abroad.

It should be noted that according to a survey by the Levada Centre, conducted in June, Yabloko’s amendments to the Constitution turned out to be more popular among Russians than Vladimir Putin’s amendments.

In March, all four Yabloko deputies in the Moscow City Duma voted against the constitutional amendments introduced by President Vladimir Putin and approved by the Federal Assembly.

The bills with amendments from the “Constitution of Free People” which is alternative to the Kremlin’s amendments were previously submitted to the legislative assemblies of the Astrakhan and Pskov regions, the Republic of Karelia, Moscow and St. Petersburg, where Yabloko has MPs in the regional parliaments.

Yabloko’se Federal Political Committee considers the amendments to the Constitution of Russia, initiated by President Putin, be destruction of the foundations of the constitutional system of Russia and Russia’s legal system as a whole. The Federal Political Committee of Yabloko declared that voting on Putin’s amendments to the Constitution was fundamentally unacceptable.