Senators will respond again – Kommersant

The bill on changing the electoral legislation, adopted by the State Duma on Wednesday in the second reading, at the last moment introduced new amendments to the law “On the Procedure for Forming the Federation Council” (SF). They are talking about the return of the mechanism for recalling senators at the initiative of the regional authorities, which was abolished more than ten years ago. As the authors of the amendments explained, members of the upper house risk losing their powers ahead of schedule, for example, they do not visit their region for a long time, and in the case of a “biased attitude” towards senators, the Federation Council itself will protect them.

The amendments proposed by MP Dmitry Vyatkin, senators Andrei Klishas, ​​Vladimir Poletaev and Vyacheslav Timchenko involve several changes to the law. First, they establish uniform requirements for candidates for senators from the executive branch. Now a governor elected in direct elections can delegate any candidate (who meets all other requirements) to the Federation Council, while the head of a region appointed by the legislative assembly (as they do in the North Caucasus, Crimea and autonomous regions) can only delegate a deputy or senator. Previously, this requirement was valid in both cases, but for the first category of leaders it was canceled a long time ago, but now it is proposed to cancel it for the second. Secondly, the amendments bring the requirements for candidates for senators in line with the passive suffrage restrictions introduced in recent years, namely, they expand the list of criminal offenses, the sentence for which prevents getting into the Federation Council. Finally, thirdly, they are restoring the institution of recalling senators at the request of the regional authorities.

According to the proposed mechanism, the governor or legislative assembly will have the right to apply to the upper house with a proposal to recall its representative to the Federation Council ahead of schedule.

It can be introduced not earlier than one year after the appointment of a senator and not less than three months before the expiration of his powers. If the Federation Council rejects this submission, then it will be possible to re-request the recall of the senator only after six months.

According to Vyacheslav Timchenko, the institute of recall will increase the responsibility of members of the Federation Council. “There are cases when some senators do not visit their regions for half a year,” Mr. Timchenko told Kommersant. “We give (to regional authorities.— “b”) the right to evaluate their work and, if necessary, to decide that they do not live up to expectations. At the same time, the parliamentarian stressed that in addition to objective reasons for recall, there may also be subjective ones, so the final decision remains with the chamber: “There will be a comprehensive discussion at the site of the Federation Council, consultations, including with the body that empowered the senator himself, in order to exclude cases of bias “.

The institution of recall of senators has a very rich history. It appeared in 2000, when governors and speakers of legislative assemblies, who sat ex officio in the upper house, were replaced by appointees.

The right to recall members of the Federation Council was given to the authorities of the regions, and the Federation Council was obliged to fulfill their will. The senators themselves considered this mechanism “voluntaristic” and often resisted it.

The then speaker of the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov, urged the regions not to recall their colleagues: for example, he personally asked Nizhny Novgorod deputies not to vote for depriving Senator Yevgeny Bushmin, whom Governor Gennady Khodyrev tried to remove. And in response to the decision of Tatarstan President Mintimer Shaimiev to recall Rafgat Altynbaev, the upper chamber staged a real demarche, demanding official explanations.

In 2004, Mr. Mironov turned the situation around 180 degrees: on his initiative, amendments were adopted that gave the speaker of the Federation Council the exclusive right to raise the issue of recalling a member of the chamber. Now Sergei Mironov himself turned to the regional deputies with a proposal to deprive someone of their powers, and they considered him. This mechanism also met resistance, but this time from below. For example, the Supreme Council of Khakassia refused to vote for the recall of its representative Arkady Sarkisyan, which the speaker of the Federation Council insisted on.

In 2009, then-President Dmitry Medvedev changed the concept again, giving the regions back the right to recall senators. In 2011, when the amendments came into force, the St. Petersburg deputies immediately took advantage of them and recalled Sergei Mironov himself, who by that time was in a protracted conflict with United Russia. But the story didn’t end there either. Valentina Matviyenko, who replaced Mr. Mironov, spoke out against the “threat of the Damocles’ sword of layoffs due to fluctuations in the regional situation” hanging over the senators, and the institute of recall was simply abolished.

Only Aleksey Kurinny (KPRF) openly spoke out against his return at a meeting of the Duma on May 17. He suggested that on the proposal of the regions, the powers of “some wrong senators who vote incorrectly, take the wrong position” will be terminated: “This is fundamentally wrong from the point of view of the legal structure of the mandate that exists today. This actually makes the upper house of parliament an absolutely controlled body, any member of which can be pulled out at any moment.”

Dmitry Vyatkin, who presented the United Russia amendments, assured the communist that the mechanism was used “extremely rarely” before and that such cases could not become frequent in the future, because, “as practice shows, the senator has close working relations with those bodies and the highest official who appointed him “. “It happens that the highest official terminates his powers ahead of schedule. The new senior official begins to form his team, and in this case, he, of course, should have such powers (to recall the senator.— “b”),” United Russia said.

Representatives of other parties interviewed by Kommersant supported the amendments. Aleksey Didenko (LDPR), head of the regional policy committee, even said that it would be logical to apply the same mechanism to deputies, otherwise “the norm turns out to be discriminatory in relation to one of the chambers.”

Sardana Avksentieva (New People) noted that the senator needs to be replaced “if he does not bring real benefit to his region”: “A senator is not an honorary title, but a difficult job.” And only the ex-speaker of the Federation Council, Sergei Mironov, who now heads the Just Russia – For Truth party, said that the laws on the Federation Council “are working” and he sees “no need to make changes to them regarding the recall of senators.”

Andrey Ash, Ksenia Veretennikova