Duma spring will begin in January – Newspaper Kommersant No. 1 (7446) dated 01/09/2023

The spring session of the State Duma on Monday will traditionally begin with a “regional week”. The agenda of the first plenary session on January 17 will be approved by the Council of the Duma the day before, but some of the deputies’ plans are already known. In particular, in January-February, new measures are expected to be taken to provide social support to the spouses of war veterans, to continue the fight against sabotage and to introduce punishment for the publication of maps challenging the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.

According to the approximate program of legislative work of the Duma in the spring session of 2023, deputies plan to consider over 120 priority bills.

Thus, in January, the Duma intends to adopt a project submitted at the end of 2022 by a group of parliamentarians headed by the chairmen of both chambers, Vyacheslav Volodin and Valentina Matviyenko, on providing social support measures to the spouses of fallen war veterans, regardless of their living conditions and family members. It is also planned for January to approve the government amendments adopted in the first reading in March 2022 on empowering the prosecution authorities with the right to receive information, access to which is limited by federal laws, including personal data of citizens.

Another bill scheduled for January, signed by 384 deputies headed by Speaker Volodin, introduces administrative liability for the dissemination in the media of information containing instructions on the illegal manufacture of ammunition for firearms. Earlier, we recall, the Duma adopted a package of amendments aimed at combating sabotage activities, supplementing the list of prohibited and subject to blocking information with information on methods for manufacturing weapons and ammunition.

Also in January, the deputies plan to consider amendments to the Family Code, introduced by representatives of all factions, except for United Russia (ER), which extend the ban on the adoption of Russian children, which applies to Americans, to citizens of all unfriendly countries. It is also planned for January to consider the amendments approved at the end of 2022 in the first reading, which imply the actual abolition of the annual declaration of income and property for regional and municipal deputies working on a voluntary basis. According to this draft, submitted by deputies from United Russia, A Just Russia – For Truth and the Liberal Democratic Party, unpaid elected representatives will file declarations only before the elections, and after them only if a major transaction is made that exceeds the total income of the legislator and his wife for three previous years (now the same procedure is provided for deputies of rural settlements). When considering the document in the first reading, the Communists insisted on maintaining the obligation to submit declarations for chairmen of representative bodies working on a voluntary basis (now in 11 regions the heads of legislative assemblies have the right to work on a non-permanent basis). The co-author of the project, the chairman of the State Duma Committee on State Building and Legislation, Pavel Krasheninnikov (ER), considered this idea reasonable and suggested that the Communist Party of the Russian Federation prepare the corresponding amendments for the second reading.

In February, the second reading of the government’s draft on improving the mechanisms for ensuring the status of the Russian language as the state language and on monitoring compliance with the norms of the modern Russian literary language is expected. In development of the norms already contained in the legislation, which prohibit state bodies from “using foreign words, with the exception of those that do not have commonly used analogues in the Russian language,” these amendments suggest that officials consult dictionaries and reference books to be developed by a government commission.

Some high-profile documents are not yet included in the Duma program, but they can also be considered in the coming months – such as, for example, two United Russia bills banning the distribution of maps and other products that contain data that dispute the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. The deadline for submitting amendments to them is 18 January. If projects are accepted for distributing cards with such “mistakes”, citizens will face punishment up to and including arrest for 15 days, and legal entities will face a fine of up to 1 million rubles.

The new version of the law “On Citizenship” introduced by the President, adopted in the first reading on April 5, 2022, has not yet been included in the program. For the second reading, a group of senators proposed amendments on the termination of acquired Russian citizenship for crimes against military service during the period of mobilization or martial law. In addition, as part of the consideration of this document, a discussion may unfold about citizens of the Russian Federation by birth who left the country and condemn the special military operation: the Constitution prohibits depriving such Russians of citizenship, but some deputies suggest thinking about their “loss of rights” in a different form (see below). material on the same page).

Ksenia Veretennikova, Maria Makutina