Legislative mobilization – Newspaper Kommersant No. 215 (7416) dated 11/21/2022

Special military operation (SVO), partial mobilization and development of new territories remain among the main topics of parliamentary lawmaking. Over the past month, about three dozen such initiatives have been submitted to the State Duma. Most of them concern the integration of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions into the Russian legal system, the introduction of new types of deferrals from mobilization and the protection of the rights of NWO participants and their families.

The deputies themselves have recently been the most active in advertising their new bills aimed at improving the mobilization process. Thus, A Just Russia – For Truth (SRZP) advocated the abolition of the deferment from conscription for mobilization for senators and deputies of the State Duma. The authors also propose to mobilize, first of all, employees of law enforcement agencies, and to grant a deferment to a number of categories of citizens (passing alternative civilian service; relatives of the military who died in the draft service; citizens with three or more children under the age of 16; parents or guardians of children with disabilities under the age of 18, etc.). At the same time, a group of Communist Party deputies led by party leader Gennady Zyuganov introduced a bill to increase from 16 to 18 the age of children whose parents are granted a deferment from conscription for mobilization (there must be at least three dependent children).

In addition, communist Mikhail Matveev proposed to exempt doctors and candidates of sciences, as well as citizens who had not previously completed military service, from conscription. His faction comrade Oleg Mikhailov took the initiative to establish the same monthly payments for veterans of modern military operations as for participants in the Great Patriotic War. And the deputies from the “New People” and the Liberal Democratic Party remembered the tourists and introduced a bill providing the right to a refund of the full cost of tourist services for those who could not go on a trip due to mobilization.

Parliamentarians were very actively involved in the issues of legal integration of new territories. For example, Federation Council speaker Valentina Matvienko, senators Liliya Gumerova and Andrey Klishas, ​​and MP Pavel Krasheninnikov (United Russia) amended the law “On Enactment of Part Four of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation” to include the DPR, LPR, Zaporozhye and Kherson region into the Russian system of intellectual property protection. LDPR deputies, led by party leader Leonid Slutsky, proposed amendments on the application of the provisions of the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes of the Russian Federation in new regions. They propose extending the norms of Russian criminal law to crimes committed in new territories before September 30, 2022. The bill also provides for the possibility of refusing to initiate a criminal case if the act, the pre-trial investigation of which was carried out before September 30, is not a crime under the Russian Criminal Code.

United Russia, in turn, prepared a draft law on equating the rules for enforcement proceedings in the new subjects to the all-Russian ones. According to these amendments, enforcement documents issued in the new territories before September 30 have the same legal force as documents issued by Russian courts and are subject to execution.

Another group of deputies from United Russia introduced a bill on the procedure and conditions for the transfer of assets of enterprises that are at the stage of bankruptcy proceedings in bankruptcy proceedings to enterprises fulfilling the state defense order during the period of mobilization and wartime.

The regions were not left out. The Legislative Assembly of the Penza Region came up with an initiative to give the subjects of the Russian Federation the right to assist military commissariats in their material and technical support. And the Oryol Regional Council proposed to give new benefits to mobilized borrowers. Recall that in early October, a law was passed allowing mobilized, volunteers and their families to request a grace period for all types of loans. During the credit holidays, a preferential interest is charged in the amount of 2/3 of the average market value of the corresponding type of loan as of the date of applying for the benefit (except for mortgages). The Oryol deputies proposed to abolish the calculation of interest on the main debt during the credit holidays for the mobilized.

It should be noted that the Duma considered several recent bills on the topics mentioned in an expedited manner. Thus, last week a law was passed in three readings extending the status of combat veterans to volunteers participating in the NWO. An impressive group of deputies and senators headed by the speakers of both chambers Vyacheslav Volodin and Valentina Matvienko acted as its co-authors. No less promptly was approved a document aimed at the speedy inclusion in the Russian legal field of organizations and individual entrepreneurs operating in new territories.

Also on November 14, the Duma adopted in the first reading a bill by a group of deputies and senators on the suspension of proceedings in the case if the defendant participates in hostilities. As stated in the explanatory note to the document, it brings to uniformity the list of grounds enshrined in various laws and codes for the courts to suspend proceedings in cases where the parties take part in hostilities, counter-terrorist operations and “solve other similar tasks aimed at protecting the Motherland and ensuring law and order”.

Ksenia Veretennikova