The State Duma Legal Department does not approve of depriving the Yeltsin Center of special status

The State Duma Legal Department does not approve of depriving the Yeltsin Center of special status

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The Legal Department of the State Duma issued a negative opinion on the bill, which provides for depriving the Yeltsin Center of the status of a presidential center. Yesterday, March 18, the document was published on the website of the lower house of parliament.

Deputy Vladimir Isakov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) took the initiative to amend the law “On the centers of historical heritage of the presidents of the Russian Federation who have ceased to exercise their powers,” as Kommersant previously reported. He proposed maintaining the possibility of creating centers of historical heritage of Russian presidents “only in relation to presidents of the Russian Federation who ceased to exercise their powers after January 1, 2000.” The explanatory note states that the bill was developed “in order to restore historical justice and prevent distortion of history”: “The existence of the center for historical heritage named after B. N. Yeltsin in the form that it is now creates a threat to national unity and splits Russian society.”

It should be noted that the Yeltsin Center is regularly criticized by various public figures and politicians. Thus, in January 2023, the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov proposed closing the institution and creating a center for patriotic education instead. In June of the same year, it became known that the Ministry of Justice organized an inspection of the center for the activities of a foreign agent. However, the department later admitted that inspections and recognition of the Yeltsin Center as a foreign agent were impossible due to its special status. Then deputy Andrei Alshevskikh (United Russia) proposed to “edit the Federal Law and deprive the Yeltsin Center of these benefits.”

The bill, which would have provided for depriving the Yeltsin Center of the status of a presidential center, did not suit the Duma legal department. In conclusion, it is noted that the project does not meet the “requirements of certainty, clarity and unambiguity of the legal norm” – the authors want to oblige the center to “provide an objective assessment” of the activities of President Yeltsin, but do not present “criteria for assessing the objectivity of such activities.” In addition, the department noted, the project does not determine the legal status of “an already created center that carries out the study and public presentation of the historical heritage of the President of the Russian Federation, who ceased to exercise his powers before January 1, 2000.”

Emilia Gabdullina

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