Place for consensus – Newspaper Kommersant No. 239 (7440) dated 12/23/2022

The main areas of work of the Duma during the autumn session that ended on Thursday were issues related to the special military operation (SVO), partial mobilization and the entry of new territories into Russia. The deputies were even more active than before, they fought against external and internal enemies, toughened the responsibility for saboteurs and foreign agents, and at the same time representatives of the LGBT community also got it. Experts especially note the unanimity of different factions, which was expressed, among other things, in the introduction of bills with hundreds of co-authors.

The main event of the fall session of the State Duma is usually the adoption of the budget (the current draft, according to the speaker of the chamber, Vyacheslav Volodin, has become “the most difficult in recent years”), but this year it was actually overshadowed by the topic of the SVO. “Fateful events left their mark on the content and organization of the work of the State Duma,” Mr. Volodin explained in his closing speech at the December 22 meeting. And he ended it with a call to abandon political differences, because “we have one party – our country.”

Everything for the front

The partial mobilization announced by the President on September 21 allowed the Duma to demonstrate its unity. The decision of the head of state was supported by all factions, although at meetings many deputies talked about “excesses” during the mobilization. At the same time, representatives of all Duma parties were preparing their own initiatives to change legislation – primarily the relevant law “On mobilization preparation and mobilization.”

True, most of the initiatives regarding new deferrals from mobilization have not yet received approval. For example, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation proposed exempting parents with many children from conscription who have not four, as is now established, but three or more children, and the Liberal Democratic Party introduced an initiative to defer the parents of disabled children. According to the Duma’s specialized defense committee, all these issues are being worked out with the government. At the same time, the move was not given to the initiative, which was opposite in meaning – on criminal liability for evading mobilization (now it is provided only for evading military service). As Andrey Kartapolov and Vasily Piskarev (both EPs) explained, the heads of the committees on defense and security, this initiative was considered immediately after the start of partial mobilization, but after its completion it lost its relevance.

In the autumn session, however, mainly projects related to the economic support of the mobilized and their families were adopted. So, the deputies approved amendments to the Labor Code from the chairman of the labor committee Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR) on the preservation of jobs for mobilized, contract workers and volunteers.

A bill was promptly adopted by a group of deputies and senators on credit holidays for participants in the SVO. Another inter-factional initiative of deputies from the United Russia, Liberal Democratic Party and SRZP gave individual entrepreneurs the right, in the event of mobilization, not to apply for termination of work (according to the law, military personnel cannot engage in entrepreneurial activities), but to appoint a manager.

Some deputies expressed their readiness to personally go to the front line. In United Russia, for example, several such party members reported at once, including the head of the health committee Dmitry Khubezov, Vitaly Milonov and Alexander Borodai. At the same time, the issue of the format of their participation in the SVO has not yet been resolved legally, since the current legislation excludes federal parliamentarians from among those who can be mobilized. As a result, their trips to the NMD zone are documented as business trips, they are not going to give up their deputy mandate, and amendments to the law on the status of parliamentarians in this regard have not been introduced.

In addition to supporting the participants of the SVO, the Duma was also engaged in the legal consolidation of its first results. On October 3, the deputies ratified the agreements on the entry into the Russian Federation of the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, and also approved four relevant federal constitutional laws. This gave a start to the process of integrating new entities into the Russian legal system. Laws have already been adopted on the inclusion of legal entities from new regions in civil circulation, on a special procedure for enforcement proceedings and the circulation of alcohol, and on the procedure for collecting VAT on goods and services. Draft laws on the formation of courts, the application of the Criminal and Criminal Procedure Codes, the enforcement of court decisions, the specifics of taxation, inheritance, etc. are under consideration. Viacheslav Volodin on Thursday promised that work on the formation of legislation in new territories would be completed in 2023.

Another unexpected result of the active “special operation” work of the Duma was the decision taken in October by the council of the chamber to stop broadcasting plenary sessions on the Internet. The Duma sources of Kommersant explained this by the fact that the issues of “legislative support for the NVO” discussed by the deputies could become the subject of interest of forces hostile to Russia. Now “plenary” broadcasts only in the Duma offices and in the press center of the lower house.

Enemies all around

Meanwhile, the fight against external and internal enemies has become a separate area of ​​the Duma’s autumn work. On December 1, a new law “On Control over the Activities of Persons Under Foreign Influence” came into force, summarizing the provisions of various regulations on foreign agents. The deputies and senators decided to mark this date by “improving the regulation” of the status of a foreign agent. The authors of the law adopted at the end of November were representatives of all factions, except for the Communist Party, and members of the Federation Council. These amendments prohibit foreign agents from organizing rallies, participating in educational activities and public procurement, being members of election commissions, donating money to parties, etc. And by the second reading, a ban on serving in law enforcement agencies was added to the text. Despite the criticism of the communists, the rule on expanding the list of places where mass events cannot be held, not only for foreign agents, but also for any Russians, remained in the law. It included, in particular, educational and medical organizations, buildings of social security bodies, territories of public authorities, as well as “other places”, if the ban is “conditioned” by historical, cultural or “other objective features of the subject of the Russian Federation”.

The Duma also adopted amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Administrative Offenses, clarifying liability for violating the law on foreign agents. Now all “foreign agent” administrative structures are combined into one article, and the sign of “malice” when evading the duties of a foreign agent has disappeared from the Criminal Code – instead, the principle of prejudice has been introduced: criminal liability will come after two administrative penalties within one year.

The result of the intensification of the fight against enemies was a complete ban on the promotion of non-traditional sexual relations, sex change and pedophilia, which the authors of this initiative also explained by “civilizational confrontation with the West.” They repeatedly spoke about this in their speeches to emphasize the importance and relevance of their idea. Particularly ardent zealots of traditional values ​​proposed not to be limited to administrative punishment for violators of the law and to introduce a criminal article, but this idea did not find support in the relevant committee on legislation.

The deputies did not forget about the more obvious enemies of the SVO period, increasing the punishment for sabotage and related crimes up to life imprisonment. Some parliamentarians called for the return of the death penalty for saboteurs, but so far remained in the minority. By the way, a group of 381 deputies introduced “anti-sabotage” amendments to the Duma – such collective initiatives became a popular phenomenon during this particular session. Previously, only the law of 2012, which banned Americans from adopting Russian orphans, had such a large composition of authors, and this fall there were three such projects at once (on saboteurs, on the ban on LGBT propaganda and on the possibility of transferring municipal schools under the control of regional authorities).

Finally, towards the end of the session, amendments were adopted in the first reading, prohibiting the distribution of maps and other products that dispute the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation. Such materials are now equated with extremist, and for their distribution, citizens will face a fine or arrest for up to 15 days, and legal entities – a fine of up to 1 million rubles. The ban on surrogate motherhood for foreigners, the introduction of unified general education programs at the federal level, and the emergence of a state order for the development of textbooks also fit into the general context of strengthening sovereignty.

Among the important initiatives that failed to be adopted, it is worth noting the new version of the law “On Citizenship” introduced by the president: the deputies approved it in the first reading on April 5 and expected to adopt the law before the end of the year, but in the end it was postponed to next year. At the same time, for the second reading, a group of senators proposed amendments in the spirit of the time – on the termination of acquired Russian citizenship for crimes against military service committed during the period of mobilization or martial law. The municipal reform has also been postponed until better times: the new version of the law on local self-government, adopted in the first reading on January 25, has not yet reached the second reading. More than 900 amendments have already been submitted to the bill.

Competition within unanimity

Political scientist Pavel Sklyanchuk believes that this session was “overproductive” in terms of the number of bills considered, “government hours” held and the number of plenary sessions. “The session will be remembered for the closure of online broadcasts, the adoption of the most difficult budget and multi-author bills that speak of cross-party consolidation. In addition, at the end of the year, there was a tendency to intensify parliamentary diplomacy with friendly countries, which will only increase in the future. As for lawmaking, here the legal integration of new territories is under special control,” the expert lists.

Political scientist Alexei Makarkin believes that nothing fundamentally new happened in the life of the Duma in the autumn, although the situation around the NVO left its mark, of course: “If the West used to be a partner, although this word was increasingly pronounced with irony, now it is definitely an enemy.” According to the expert, the autumn session was another confirmation that all parties in the Duma remain within the framework of consensus on foreign policy, defense, security and other issues of principle for the authorities. “A wall has been built between the systemic and non-systemic opposition, although not so long ago the Communist Party of the Russian Federation cooperated with the latter at least at the level of individual regions,” Mr. Makarkin notes. But the parties still compete with each other, he adds: “For example, the opposition competes in the question of who is the greater patriot, seeking the support of an electorate critical of the government.”

Ksenia Veretennikova