More legal, less subordinate – Newspaper Kommersant No. 15 (7460) of 01/27/2023

On Thursday, the State Duma held a meeting with state secretaries of ministries and departments. Its participants noted the improvement in interaction between the government and the Duma, as evidenced by the accelerated adoption of anti-sanctions measures and the increase in the number of government bills submitted and approved. The reduction in the number of by-laws was also seen as a good sign, confirming the improvement in the quality of laws. At the same time, Oleg Morozov, chairman of the Duma Control Committee, drew attention to the practice of deputies introducing bills developed by departments without informing the government: according to the head of the committee, this is fraught with reputational and sometimes political risks.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Government Staff Dmitry Grigorenko cited optimistic statistics: in 2022, compared to 2021, the number of bills submitted to the Duma by the government increased from 347 to 387, and the number of government conclusions from 348 to 399. In total, the Duma adopted 389 draft laws submitted by the Cabinet of Ministers over the year (against 289 in 2021), and the government sent 486 reviews to the lower house (in 2021 – 394).

At the same time, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the number of regulatory legal acts that the government issues in the development of federal laws, on the contrary, has decreased from 2085 to 1750. But this, in his opinion, is also a good sign: the quality of the laws themselves has increased, they become there are fewer points of contention that need further clarification. Especially Mr. Grigorenko noted “the involvement of deputies in the legislative process related to the government of the Russian Federation.” One of the positive results of the year, he called the adoption in a short time of 100% of government bills prepared as part of the opposition to Western sanctions.

As the head of the Cabinet of Ministers admitted, earlier deputies complained that the government did not prepare regulatory legal acts on time: “We started 2021 with a certain debt – 159 regulatory legal acts were not done on time.” But during 2022, “there was no debt on regulatory legal acts,” the official concluded.

Recall that in November 2022, the Duma Control Committee in its report criticized the government for delays in the development of by-laws (see “Kommersant” dated November 28, 2022). But in the office of Dmitry Grigorenko, Kommersant was then told that the situation was already improving: in 2022, the number of violations of the deadlines for the introduction or adoption of regulatory legal acts decreased by almost four times – 247 documents (17.6%) against 978 in 2021 ( 46.9%). And at the end of 2022, there were no “overdue” acts left at all, given the postponement or suspension of the preparation of some long-planned documents.

First Vice Speaker of the Duma Alexander Zhukov called the rapid adoption of measures aimed at protecting the economy “in the face of unprecedented sanctions aggression” a vivid example of interaction with the government. These measures, he said, helped ensure the stability of the economy and fulfill the social obligations of the state. “Last year, we adopted more than 50 counter-sanction laws, mostly they were drafts that were introduced by the government,” the deputy reported.

Chairman of the State Duma Control Committee Oleg Morozov agreed that the level of interaction between the chamber and the government is “changing for the better”, and noted a sharp – 3.5 times – reduction in overdue government reviews of bills. But even here “there is something to work on,” the deputy stressed. “We asked the committees for information on how the government complies with the deadlines for preparing reviews, conclusions, and amendments to bills.

According to the data we have received, the government has so far violated the deadlines for submitting comments on 54 bills, although in each case it is necessary to understand why this is happening,” Mr. Morozov said, explaining that we are talking only about projects of the current convocation of the State Duma (from autumn 2021 ).

Also, according to him, “I would like to avoid not too convincing motives” for adjusting the plan of government hours by the Cabinet, although such examples are still rare. In addition, the deputies were faced with the fact that in response to their requests, the data of various departments “very significantly differ from each other,” Oleg Morozov was perplexed, and it is especially unpleasant when such a problem arises with requests made on behalf of the Chairman of the State Duma. The head of the committee also mentioned one “rather delicate topic”: the practice of developing bills by departments and introducing them on behalf of deputies – “sometimes without special informing the government.” “If this is done behind the back of the government, then this entails not only substantive, but also reputational, and sometimes political risks that cannot be justified by considerations of simplifying or speeding up the procedure,” Morozov warned.

Ksenia Veretennikova