State construction in an open field – Kommersant

On Wednesday, a meeting of the Commission of the Council of Legislators on the integration of new subjects of the Russian Federation into the legal system of the country was held in the Tauride Palace in St. Petersburg. The commission, consisting of six people, heard reports from representatives of the legislative and executive authorities of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR), Kherson and Zaporozhye regions. The chairmen of the people’s councils and interim governors talked about the normative acts that have already been adopted and about the difficulties that prevent the full integration of new territories. Those present also supported three bills aimed at helping the participants in the special operation and counteracting the use of drones.

The meeting opened with an introductory speech by the chairman of the commission, speaker of the State Council of Crimea, Vladimir Konstantinov. To begin with, he recalled that on April 26, 1954, the USSR adopted a law “On the transfer of the Crimean region from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR”, and called this document a “time bomb” and “injustice”, which at the political level “we corrected “. “Recently, there was a proposal to bring down this law at the legal level as absolutely illegal. The political correction in our country happened as a result of the referendum, but the legal one – within the framework of the Constitutional Court, it is necessary to determine all the violations with which this law was adopted. It seems to me that this would be very important,” concluded Mr. Konstantinov.

Vladimir Bidevka, chairman of the People’s Council of the DPR, made the first report. “For us today, the most important task is to prepare for the adoption of legislation that would contribute to our speedy integration into the legal field of Russia. In 2023, we have already registered 67 draft laws and adopted 20. The main laws were developed and adopted in pursuance of the Federal Constitutional Law No. 5 (“On the Adoption of the Donetsk People’s Republic in the Russian Federation and the Formation of a New Subject – the Donetsk People’s Republic” within the Russian Federation.— “b”),” he began his speech. The politician recalled that on December 30, 2022, a new constitution was adopted in the DPR, and among the priority tasks he named legislative support for the process of restoring the republican industry. “Currently, the People’s Council, together with the government of the DPR, is working on a bill aimed at creating a legislative framework to support the activities of the region’s subjects. Including over the draft law on the industrial policy of the republic,” he said.

According to the speaker, a draft law on the creation of a free economic zone in new regions, adopted in the first reading by the State Duma, became a “breath of fresh air” for the DPR.

“We understand that in order to restore the destroyed infrastructure and industrial potential of Donbass, we need a legislative framework that will provide favorable conditions for investors,” Mr. Bidevka emphasized.

Denis Miroshnichenko, chairman of the People’s Council, spoke about the progress of the integration of the LPR, in turn, noting that many processes in the republic are going in parallel with the DPR. He paid special attention to the law on the Commissioner for Children’s Rights adopted in the LPR, promising that in the future the same institution for human rights as a whole would be created. “Today we have one main problem: unfortunately, military actions do not always allow us to take this step – the integration process – quickly,” Miroshnichenko complained.

Acting Governor of the Kherson region Vladimir Saldo, who spoke via video link, said that in his region the situation with integration into the legal field of Russia is more complicated than in the DPR, LPR and Crimea.

“We don’t have a legislature. We are now working in the format of regulatory legal acts that were adopted before joining the Russian Federation. Now territorial bodies of federal departments are being created – 28 such structures have already been created throughout the region. There is a prosecutor’s office, there are bodies of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there are courts, although they are still weakly functioning, control bodies are being created,” he said. “We will not be able to integrate into the right field so quickly, but according to the law we have time until 2026 and 2028.”

Instead of the previously announced Acting Governor of the Zaporozhye region, Yevgeny Balitsky, the head of his apparatus, Oksana Vyunik, also joined the meeting via video link. She immediately explained that Mr. Balitsky was holding a “meeting in the neighboring office for territorial defense,” and named the lengthy process of coordinating documents with the federal government as one of the main problems. This, in her opinion, slows down the integration process. In this regard, Ms. Vyunik suggested creating a working group with representatives of new entities to prepare projects and determine standard forms of documents, structure and staffing of government bodies. “There are features of our territory. We are building a new subject of Russia in an open field. We do not have many opportunities and capacities that are provided for by the current legislation,” she noted. Vladimir Konstantinov supported this idea, proposing to create a working group on the basis of the already existing commission of the Council of Legislators.

“The completion of the special operation is a fundamental factor in the integration process in the full sense of the word. So that people calm down and believe that Russia is forever,” added Mr. Konstantinov.

“There are such difficulties: our territory is a red zone in which hostilities are taking place,” Oksana Vyunik emphasized. In our conditions, people do not want to work for such salaries. We are also preparing federal initiatives to amend Russian legislation so that on the line of military clashes the salaries of people who perform such functions are higher.”

At the end of the speeches of the representatives of the regions, a short video was shown about the support Crimea provided to the new regions during the special operation. After that, the commission unanimously and without discussion supported three bills that are supposed to be submitted to the State Duma: on establishing responsibility for the dissemination of information about military installations located on the territory of Russia with a special legal regime; on countering the use of unmanned aerial vehicles; on amendments to the federal law “On military duty and military service”.

Nadezhda Yarmula, St. Petersburg