Participants of the special operation are offered to simplify the way to the Federation Council

A group of State Duma deputies from A Just Russia, headed by party leader Sergei Mironov, submitted a bill to the lower house, allowing participants in a special military operation to become senators without taking into account the “residency requirement”. The document was registered in the Duma database on the evening of July 5.

The authors propose to amend the law “On the procedure for the formation of the Federation Council”. Now, in order to be nominated to the upper house, a candidate must meet the “settlement requirement”: before being nominated, he must live in the region for five consecutive years or 20 years in total. But, as indicated in the explanatory note, there are exceptions to this rule – for example, for current deputies of the State Duma and members of the Federation Council, senior officers, diplomats with the rank of ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, federal civil servants in the regions, etc.

“This federal law proposes to extend this exception to persons called <…> for military service for mobilization in the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation or those undergoing (passing) military service under a contract <…> or who have entered into a contract to stay in a volunteer formation,” the bill says. Thus, participants in the special operation will be able to become candidates for senators, which will emphasize their special status and “contribution to the upholding of sovereignty.”

Participants of the special operation often move and are far from their permanent regions of residence, says one of the authors of the bill, Deputy Head of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy Mikhail Delyagin. “[Например]in the Kursk, Bryansk or Voronezh regions they will want to nominate a participant in a special operation who protect [Родину], but at the same time from other regions. There should be no obstacles for this,” he explained to Vedomosti.

The lists of A Just Russia for the autumn elections are still being compiled, but the number of candidates participating in the special operation for deputies of the City Duma and regional parliaments “will be measured in dozens,” another co-author of the document, the first deputy head of the State Duma Committee on Education, Yana Lantratova, told Vedomosti.

The heroes of the special operation can become “fresh faces of all Russian politics,” said Alexei Zhuravlev, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Defense Committee (Motherland). They have the right to participate in legislative activities much more than officials “who have been holed up in the rear all this time,” he notes.

Zhuravlev calls the initiative of the deputies from the “SR” timely. “On the one hand, it gives the defenders of the Motherland a social lift through which they can climb, which is quite consistent with their ambitions, on the other hand, it can radically renew the composition of our branches of power, filling them with those who truly support the fate of Russia,” he told Vedomosti.

Vyacheslav Timchenko, Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Rules and Organization of Parliamentary Activities, supports the concept of a bill to abolish the residency requirement for senator candidates who participated in the special operation, but believes that “the details need to be worked out.”

“First of all, it is necessary to determine who is a participant in the special operation, what contribution he made, where he was – on the front line or not, etc. In principle, this issue can be considered, especially since exceptions for a number of categories of citizens are in the norm on residence qualifications are already provided for,” he told Vedomosti.

The “SR” initiative, in principle, fits into the general logic and “ideology that is set at the level of the president,” and this increases its chances of acceptance, says Vitaly Ivanov, an expert on regional politics. “There are a lot of exceptions to the rule of territorial settlement in the law. If one more item is added, nothing will fundamentally change,” he told Vedomosti.

Considering the importance and status of this position [сенатора], this is “a place for generals and for heroes,” the expert believes. “Even among the participants in the special operation there is a hierarchy. A simple soldier is not a figure that can be nominated to the Federation Council,” he said.

Political scientist Konstantin Kostin also calls the initiative “reasonable”. “The president said at meetings with military commanders that it is necessary to actively involve people in various fields who have shown themselves during a special military operation. Similar statements were made by the leadership of the presidential administration and at the government level. I have no doubts that such a measure will be implemented one way or another,” he notes.

Whether this will be done within the framework of this bill or another, more comprehensive one, which gives some additional opportunities for combatants to engage in politics, depends on the political situation, the expert says.

Kostin proposes not to try on the bill for the search for candidates for senators in specific territories. The heads of constituent entities and deputies of legislative assemblies, when selecting candidates for the Federation Council, proceed, first of all, from the tasks of developing the region, he believes. “You are looking for a territorial link there in vain. Veterans of the special operation participate in elections at various levels in a variety of subjects, in particular [депутат Госдумы от «Единой России»] Sergei Sokol – in the gubernatorial campaign in Khakassia. In the Omsk region, the head of the region [экс-глава правительства ДНР Виталий Хоценко] – a person with experience in new territories,” he told Vedomosti.

After a single voting day on September 10, Omsk Oblast Senator Elena Mizulina may leave the Federation Council, informed at the end of June RBC. She was delegated to the upper house in 2015. First, she represented Governor Viktor Nazarov (ER) in the Federation Council, and then Alexander Burkov (SR), who resigned at the end of March. Now the acting head of the region is United Russia Khotsenko.

“The main problem with such amendments, as with all other reactive legislation, is for their momentary purposes, not tested by time, but still, the gaps in any norm of the law should be identified and widely discussed by experts before an amendment is made,” believes the senior partner of the Bar Association Pen & Paper and former senator Konstantin Dobrynin.

At some point, the number of such exceptions to the rule may become greater than the rules themselves, and perhaps the Russian political system will have to return to the idea of ​​direct election of senators and the abolition of the “residency requirement,” the expert believes.

State Duma introduced “settlement requirement” for senators in 2007. The initiator of the introduction of this rule was Mironov, who then headed the Federation Council. He was supported by President Vladimir Putin. In a message to the Federal Assembly in April of that year, he stated that it was necessary to strengthen the connection of the upper house with the regions.

Later, during 2014-2016, legislators reformed this qualification. In particular, the period of residence in the region for a candidate was increased from 10 to 20 years in total, senators and deputies received the right to be delegated to the Federation Council from the region only if they represent the same subject, exceptions were made for diplomats, etc.