Press Release, 17.10.2019

Yelena Dubrovina, member of the Federal Political Committee of the Yabloko party, head of the Centre for Legislative Initiatives of the Yabloko party, honored lawyer of Russia, candidate of legal sciences and member of the Central Electoral Commission of Russia in 1999-2017, took part in the Ural Forum of Constitutional Law Experts, held in Yekaterinburg on 10-11 October, 2019. in her speech at the plenary meeting Dubrovina outlined the key problems of the electoral system of Russia, such as:

1. The imitational nature of the election, emasculation of their essence – the alternative nature;

2. The results of elections held under tough administrative pressure and manipulations in favour of the current government do not reflect the objective moods in society;

3. Low level of trust in the elections and their results on behalf of society and citizens.

Yelena Dubrovina presented the key provisions of the Concept of Reforming the Electoral System of Russia, developed by the Centre for Legislative Initiatives of the Yabloko party, which are as follows:

1. Reform of the system of electoral bodies, which consists in the decentralisation and demonopolisation of electoral actions, that is, creation of other independent electoral bodies for the duration of election campaigns to carry out certain functions, such as: examination of complaints, monitoring compliance with the principle of equality of candidates, etc.

2. Introduction of the declarative nature of voter registration, which:

1. a) aims to exclude the possibility of direct falsification of voting results by electoral commissions through making a list for voters who systematically do not participate in elections, and then stuffing the corresponding number of ballots into the ballot boxes;

1. b) minimize cases of coercion to vote;

1. c) exclude the possibility of manipulating voter lists in order to overestimate the voter turnout.

3. Reforming the institution of collection of voters signatures in favour of candidate registration in the campaign, introducing an electoral deposit, restoring the right to create electoral blocs, simplifying the artificial overregulation of procedures, etc.

The round table was attended by leading Russian and foreign constitutional lawyers, judges of constitutional and statutory courts, human rights ombudspersons of the Russian regions.

Important public issues were also problems of the implementation of the rulings of the Constitutional Court by the authorities, including the judiciary, problems of federalism in Russia, issues of freedom of peaceful assembly, problems of legitimacy of public authorities in Russia and other.