The conversation is not about

The State Duma at a plenary session on Tuesday, January 24, urgently adopted amendments to the chamber’s regulations on the obligation of deputies to notify about trips abroad.

Argumentation and discussion remained behind the scenes, because in the regime of new secrecy, the Duma not only does not broadcast its meetings on the Internet, but also closes the “warm-up” – the discussion of the agenda – to a complete embargo.

What may sound there is spoken on the radio channel of the VGTRK Vesti FM.

However, the meaning of the amendments to the regulations remained the same nonsense, as well as the new secrecy in the conditions of the third year of inaccessibility of deputies for journalistic questions.

Speaker Viktor Pinsky said: “It is proposed to amend Article 31 of our Regulations and provide that in the event of a planned departure outside the Russian Federation, with the exception of sending them on business trips by order of the Chairman of the State Duma, deputies of the State Duma will be required to notify the State Duma Commission on issues control over the reliability of information on income, property and liabilities of a property nature, submitted by deputies of the State Duma, and mandate issues.

Members of the Council of the State Duma and chairmen of committees and commissions will be obliged to notify the Chairman of the State Duma of such departure.

End of quote.

The text of the resolution was scribbled in a hurry, and the corrosive member of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Alexei Kurinny took advantage of this.

He put the question point-blank: “To the question of equality of deputies. Why, let’s say, simple deputies will notify the commission in one order, while deputies who are members of the Duma Council and chairmen of committees will notify only the chairman, and whom will the chairman notify?

Maybe it would be easier to ban officials from leaving, as in one of the neighboring countries, but Russia needs to breed democracy.

On this day, a government bill on expanding genomic registration was adopted in the second reading. The document is called “On Amendments to the Federal Law “On State Genomic Registration in the Russian Federation” and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation.” It is proposed to expand the list of persons subject to mandatory state genomic registration through the following categories. This refers to persons convicted and serving a sentence in the form of imprisonment for committing any crimes, and not only for committing grave or especially grave crimes, as well as all categories of crimes against sexual integrity and sexual freedom of the individual.

Persons subjected to administrative arrest will also be subject to genomic registration.

The administrative arrest aroused quivering indignation among Duma opponents. Aleksey Kurinny had to speak with objections.

Kurinny told the following: “The fact is that the bill proposes to significantly expand the number of persons or categories of persons subject to mandatory genomic registration. Only from whom the genetic material is forcibly taken away for the subsequent, let’s say, then determination of the possibility of their involvement in some kind of crimes.

The fact is that today the current norms allow this to be done for persons who have been convicted under a criminal article and, accordingly, this procedure is mandatory for them.

The bill proposes to significantly expand these categories. And one of these categories are persons subjected to administrative arrest. This is a completely different option. These are administrative offenses, these are not crimes. This is an article with administrative arrest as a sanction. This is also political, this is 20.1, I remind you, this is the prosecution of persons who go out or organize some unauthorized public events, or participate in them, or in some other way. There are a number of articles, a number of provisions where administrative arrest is a sanction.”

End of quote.

So, the favorite topic of the communists is the organization of mass events.

It would seem, what does genomic registration have to do with it? The organizers are not hiding, unless the authors of the bill in the bowels of the government are going to genomically register all structures affiliated with the Pentagon that carry out protest projects in Russia. But they are not particularly hidden either.

Deputy Kurinny suggested that “Of course, this, perhaps, somehow simplifies the work of law enforcement agencies, but then this identification should be carried out starting from the school, let’s say, school desk, if we are finally guided by logic. Then everything will be clear. Everyone will be identified, fingerprinted, and our law enforcement agencies will not have any problems solving any crimes there.”

But, on the other hand, “Probably the most important personal data that is available is data on the genome, which allows you to uniquely identify this person.”

“To skate everyone, dear Alexei Vladimirovich, and taking DNA is also very expensive. This is to your proposal that from kindergarten, ”said the speaker, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Security and Anti-Corruption Mikhail Starshinov.

The Communists believe that administrative arrest should be excluded.

Actually, Kurinny is a doctor and surgeon by profession. Should have taken an interest in the technique of genomic registration. In the past, when genomic registration was introduced into forensics, a relatively cheap short terminal repeat method was used. It is difficult to say that this method is absolutely accurate.

However, the law enforcement system was so frightened of genomic registration that things did not work out. Material evidence was lost and frankly destroyed. It is not known what has been done there now.

It also never occurred to anyone to ask about the accuracy of the genomic registration method.

They said, as is now often the case in parliament, about nothing and nothing. Both sides are good – both United Russia and the Communists.

The explanatory note to the draft law states: “Modern DNA research methods make it possible to carry out genomic registration even with a minimum amount of biological material, with high accuracy and in a fairly short time. With the development of genomic technologies, the timing of DNA identification studies is being reduced, which is especially important in the context of an increase in the number of relevant forensic examinations. Foreign experience shows that DNA databases begin to function effectively if they contain genomic information of at least 1% of the total population of the country. The federal database of genomic information (hereinafter referred to as FBDGI) contains genomic information of 0.6% of the total population of the Russian Federation (965,315 records) as of January 1, 2020.”

At the same meeting, the government bill “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation and the Recognition of Certain Provisions of Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation” was adopted in the first reading.

Declaratively, the document expands the practice of attracting organizations under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, as well as authorized organizations of constituent entities of the Russian Federation, to assist in the provision of public services in the field of migration.

The explanatory note to the bill states that it is aimed at attracting migrants.

The explanatory note was read by the deputy of the Communist Party faction Mikhail Matveev. He attributes the rise in unemployment to the influx of migrants.

“According to various sources, including the Ministry of Internal Affairs, there are, well, about 6 million foreigners living in the Russian Federation, of which 3 million are labor migrants officially working here, about 400 thousand students, and, accordingly, the rest is unknown what is here do, that is, the purpose of their stay is unknown to us. But we can assume that these are also working people, but working unofficially. And, according to various sources, from 700 to a million people stay there illegally,” deputy Matveev said.

The speaker from the government, Secretary of State, Deputy Interior Minister Igor Zubov, takes a public position that is clearly at odds with the interests of the Interior Ministry – that we need migrants and we cannot close.

“We did not expect that from the moment we actually took over this function, in most regions there would be such an increase in revenue – explosive. Explosive and very significant,” Zubov told the deputies.

The bill, however, is about something else.

It is planned to expand the practice of involving the Federal State Unitary Enterprise “Passport and Visa Service” of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, to assist in the exercise of certain powers in the provision of public services in the field of migration, and in the federal city of Moscow – an organization authorized by this subject of the Russian Federation.

An exception is made for Moscow.

“The proposed draft law eliminates gaps and introduces amendments and additions to the laws of the Russian Federation in terms of regulating the involvement of the Federal State Enterprise “Passport and Visa Service” under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and authorized organizations in the federal city of Moscow to assist the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the provision of public services and performance of functions in the field of migration,” Zubov explained.

The deputy’s bill “On Amendments to Part 5 of Article 13.15 of the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses” was adopted in the first reading.

The initiator was the Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Irina Yarovaya.

It is proposed to establish administrative liability for the dissemination in the media and social networks of information containing instructions on the illegal manufacture of ammunition for firearms.

Anatoly Wasserman asked how to distinguish legal from illegal?

Irina Yarovaya answered in an edifying tone: “Our position has not changed, and it is reflected in the law that has already entered into force, signed by the president, it is only about classifying activities prohibited by law as prohibited information. Today, equipping hunting cartridges is the only legal activity for a citizen of the Russian Federation who legally has the right to own hunting weapons. Other information, it is a priori already associated with illegal possession of weapons, and therefore it is not in civilian circulation, and all activities related to methodological recommendations and instructions for the amateur production of ammunition that are not related to the equipment of hunting weapon cartridges are illegal.

End of quote.

The open part of the meeting of the Duma began with a statement from the Communist Party faction Yuri Sinelshchikov, who presented an analysis of the anti-constitutional phenomenon called “steam locomotive”.

We are talking about a distortion of the concept of the law adopted in the first reading by amendments to the second reading. Sometimes a completely different one, not related in meaning, is attached to one bill. This is done without permission on the day of the second reading, so that the deputies do not have time to read the voluminous amendments.

Deputy Sinelshchikov warned that the distortion of the concept of the first reading is unconstitutional and such an act is illegal.

For persuasiveness, Sinelshchikov reminded the Duma: “The ruling of the Constitutional Court of July 5, 2001 No. 11-P states: “The adoption of the law in the first reading means that its concept has received the support of the deputy corps and cannot be changed without returning to a new consideration of the concept of the act. The distortion of the original will testifies to the unconstitutionality of such an act.”

The deputy Sinelshchikov did not touch the feelings of his colleagues in the chamber, no one reacted.

Lev MOSKOVKIN.

Photo by Olga Davydova