Thank you for your letter – Newspaper Kommersant No. 147 (7348) dated 08/15/2022

The State Duma approved a new procedure for considering citizens’ appeals. In particular, the concept of “mass appeals” on the same issue is being introduced: they will now be registered under one number and receive one response. This change is overdue after numerous letters to deputies against the bill on QR codes last year, the Duma explains. This year, most of the appeals were received immediately after the start of the special operation. There are citizens who have been bombarding deputies with letters for years, and if they stop correspondence, they sue them, the expert notes.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the changes made to the procedure for considering citizens’ appeals to the Duma. The document was approved in August by speaker Vyacheslav Volodin; it is dedicated to the organization of personal reception of citizens and consideration of individual and collective appeals received in written or oral form, as well as in the form of an electronic document. In the commission on regulations, the Kommersant correspondent was explained that the changes concern more technical issues related to the registration of letters; the procedure for consideration provided for by the law “On the Procedure for Considering Appeals of Citizens of the Russian Federation” does not change the document.

The document introduces the concept of “mass appeals”. Now written mass appeals on the same issue from different citizens or associations of citizens are registered under one number and sent to committees or commissions that prepare a draft response for sending to citizens and posting on the Duma website. Until now, deputies and their assistants have had inconvenience when carbon-copied appeals had to be registered each separately, and, according to a source in the Duma, there were sometimes a lot of them, for example, on issues related to regulating the use of QR codes reflecting immune citizenship status during the coronavirus pandemic.

The rules stipulate that citizens’ appeals are considered within 30 days, but deputies or employees of the apparatus have the right to extend the consideration period by 30 days. The duration of the reception of one citizen is no more than 30 minutes. A deputy has the right to refuse a citizen’s personal reception if he is not a voter from his region.

In addition, deputies and civil servants can decide on the groundlessness of the next appeal and stop correspondence with a citizen or organization if the letter contains a question to which they have repeatedly been given answers on the merits, and no new arguments or circumstances are given. Appeals addressed to “all deputies of the State Duma”, without indicating their names, “may be transferred to factions.” If the letter contains obscene or offensive language, threats to the life, health and property of deputies, the Duma Department for Work with Citizens’ Appeals may leave it unanswered on the merits.

Reviews of applications for each month are published on the Duma’s website. Thus, in June (for July there are no materials yet), the Duma received more than 30 thousand appeals, of which about 26 thousand were delivered through the Duma’s Internet reception, almost 3 thousand were delivered personally, and 1.3 thousand were delivered by mail . Most of the appeals were received by deputies from the “United Russia” – 65.7%. Communists received 13.9% of appeals, SRZP – 9.7%, “New People” (NL) with 5.4% bypassed the Liberal Democratic Party (4.6%). The main topic of appeals to the Duma was the social sphere. The factions received 171 citizens, while SRZP held 60% of the receptions.

This year, most of the applications were received in March – 50 thousand, and many of them related to the topic “defense, security, legality.” The Duma’s website also publishes responses from committees to numerous appeals from citizens on a particular issue. For example, the Defense Committee explained the reasons for holding the SVO: Russia “is not at war with the fraternal people of Ukraine”, but “our enemy in a special military operation conducted by the RF Armed Forces is aggressive neo-Nazism, diligently nurtured by the Kyiv leadership.”

In general, 493.6 thousand appeals were sent to the Duma last year, which is 67.5% more than in 2020. Of these, about half came in the fourth quarter of the year and contained a position against bills on QR codes in public places and on transport and on the inclusion of vaccination against coronavirus infection in the national vaccination calendar. The deputies of the United Russia received almost 306 thousand letters, the Communist Party – 35 thousand, SRZP – over 21 thousand, LDPR – almost 21 thousand, IP – over 8 thousand.

In practice, the greatest difficulties for deputy assistants are caused by mass appeals from citizens, statements on non-core problems for a deputy or coming from outside his constituency, as well as letters from “professional complainers,” says political scientist Pavel Sklyanchuk. In the first case, according to him, the faction or the Duma apparatus help, for example, a response template is being prepared. In the second – often there is a transfer to another deputy by belonging to the district. Everyone deals with professional complainers in their own way. There are citizens who have been bombarding deputies with letters for years, and if they stop correspondence, they then complain to the presidential administration or sue for violation of the law on the procedure for considering appeals. At the same time, the problematic forms of correspondence can also have advantages, the expert adds, mass appeals can speak of the severity of a particular social problem, as was the case, for example, with deceived equity holders, and letters to “foreign” deputies – about low trust in “their own” .

Afanasy Sborov