Deputies faced rejection – Newspaper Kommersant No. 220 (7421) dated 11/28/2022

The State Duma Control Committee considered the government’s report on the draft by-laws necessary to implement the laws. For many of them, the deadlines for execution have long expired, and for some as early as 2014. The State Duma draws attention to the fact that the government often does not explain the reasons for delaying the deadlines, and notes that deputies do not have effective tools to influence this process.

The government quarterly sends to the deputies a report on the developed draft acts necessary for the implementation of laws. The latest list for the third quarter of this year still includes laws passed several years ago, starting in 2014. The document is being evaluated by the Duma Control Committee. According to the report (as of September 30), there are now about 680 regulatory legal acts to be developed and adopted, and about 150 of them have violated the deadlines for preparation, committee member Nikita Rumyantsev (United Russia) told Kommersant. And laws do not work without by-laws, the deputy emphasizes.

So, for example, a government decree on the procedure for issuing permits for the transportation of high-risk goods by inland waterway and rail transport has not yet been developed. Its original deadline expired in June 2014. And in January 2018, a decision was to be issued on the list of reasons that make it impossible for a person to renounce his citizenship of a foreign state and the procedure for issuing a written renunciation of it. To implement the law on the transfer of MHI policies to digital format, the “procedure for maintaining personalized records” is not ready (the deadline expired in April this year): in this case, as the committee explained, the transfer was due to anti-Russian sanctions, “interruptions in the supply of information technology components infrastructure and the need to strengthen measures to protect personal data.”

Government representatives usually do not explain the reasons for the delays in detail, but answer: “We are working on it,” says Nikita Rumyantsev. According to him, the reasons can be very different, both objective and subjective: due to the expectation of the adoption of new laws, disagreements within the government, or simply a heavy workload. It should be noted that the law “On Parliamentary Control” does not provide for the government’s obligation to explain the reasons for changing the deadlines for the preparation of by-laws and does not limit the number of their transfers.

However, the committee notes that the trend of reducing the number of required by-laws, observed since the beginning of the year, did not continue to its end. In part, this can be explained by the need for a number of urgent legislative decisions caused by anti-Russian sanctions, although “the urgency of their adoption could be accompanied by a reduction in the time frame for the development of by-laws,” the committee report says. In addition, the number of by-laws per bill on average has increased: for example, 28 acts are required for the law “On Seed Production” adopted at the end of last year, and 18 acts for the law on control over the activities of persons under foreign influence this summer. .

At the same time, the deputies of the committee do not see the “objective necessity” of concentrating responsibility for some of the by-laws on individual ministries and departments instead of settling all issues directly in the text of the relevant laws. When drafting laws, ministries often subjectively determine where direct action norms should be, the committee believes.

The deputies do not have clear powers to influence the timing of the approval of by-laws by the government, emphasizes Mr. Rumyantsev. As the committee notes, the implementation of certain norms of laws has concentrated to a large extent on departmental decisions, and not on government regulations, which limits the possibility of applying parliamentary control in relation to specific departments: after all, it is the government that sets the terms and conditions for the development of such orders. The Duma Committee believes that special measures are needed to solve this problem – in particular, it is proposed to work out the issue of coordinating government decisions on the timing of the preparation of by-laws with the Duma. In the meantime, deputies can use the results of the control committee’s assessment only when holding “government hours” in the Duma and reports from government representatives, deputy Rumyantsev states.

The situation with the delay in the development of by-laws in political science is explained by the concept of veto-players, when, for example, someone influential believes that the harm from the law will be more than good, explains political scientist Pavel Sklyanchuk. In addition, in some cases, officials may simply “get confused in the approvals.” In such cases, the task of parliamentary oversight is to find out who specifically and why is not giving way to the adoption of acts, says Mr. Sklyanchuk. It is quite possible that the framework norms of the adopted law were poorly described and they cannot be specified to the degree of implementation in practice, he adds. Unaccepted by-laws often become a reason for criticism during “government hours” with ministers, but the principle of separation of powers does not allow to influence this situation in any ultimatum way, the expert concludes.

Maria Makutina