The State Duma was proposed to strengthen the immunity of regional parliamentarians

The People’s Assembly of Ingushetia on Wednesday submitted to the State Duma a bill on additional guarantees for the immunity of regional deputies. In particular, according to its authors, such parliamentarians should be subjected to administrative punishment only with the consent of the prosecutor of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation. The Duma has doubts about the adoption of this initiative, although communist Mikhail Matveev believes that such norms could protect opposition deputies from persecution for their political activities.

The bill of the Parliament of Ingushetia involves the introduction of amendments to Art. 18 of the Law “On the General Principles of Organization of Public Power in the Subjects of the Russian Federation”. It proposes to consolidate the now prescribed norm in the Code of Criminal Procedure that the decision to initiate a criminal case against a regional parliamentarian should be made by the head of the investigative committee of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation. And subjecting regional deputies to administrative punishment, according to the authors of the project, should be done only with the consent of the prosecutor of the constituent entity of the Russian Federation.

The explanatory note notes that guarantees of the immunity of deputies of legislative assemblies “require further development”, especially given the challenges of the time.

“In the context of the foreign policy pursued by our state and the special military operation in Ukraine, the issue of increasing the confidence of citizens in the policy pursued by state authorities is of the highest priority,” the deputies point out. In their opinion, the consolidation of a special procedure for proceedings in criminal and administrative cases will allow “to protect the honor, dignity of an elected official from unreasonable and criminal encroachments.”

Chairman of the Duma Committee on Legislation Pavel Krasheninnikov (“United Russia”) told Kommersant that the issue raised by the Ingush parliament was already discussed at the end of 2021 when working on a law on public authority and did not find support. Aleksey Didenko (LDPR), head of the Regional Policy Committee, also believes that this initiative has “no prospects” and it is better to leave the current order.

Nikolay Novichkov (“Fair Russia – For the Truth”) called the proposal of the Ingush colleagues “a little naive”, since the ICR and the prosecutor’s office are organizations with hierarchical vertical subordination: “It doesn’t matter where the representative of the ICR or the prosecutor’s office works, they are still federal employees.” He recalled that his party “always advocated the abolition of any kind of parliamentary immunity.” “These are all excesses,” Mr. Novichkov added.

Oleg Leonov (“New people”) agrees that the very idea of ​​parliamentary immunity is “rather controversial”. “If we change this norm, then it will definitely be in the direction of reducing the right to immunity, and not increasing it. To increase the privileges of officials and deputies, especially during the SVO, is a direct path to tension in society. For peace and stability in the country, people should be clear: there are uniform laws and rules, everyone obeys them in the same way, ”the deputy explained to Kommersant.

Mikhail Matveev (CPRF), on the contrary, I am sure that opposition parliamentarians in the regions need more immunity. He told Kommersant how, as a Samara deputy, he was often subjected to administrative punishment for violating the law on rallies. “I think the initiative is correct. I don’t mean bringing to responsibility, for example, for speed violations, but for violations related to political activities. The legislation states that regional deputies are brought to administrative responsibility in a special manner, but this procedure itself is not spelled out. In law enforcement practice, it turns out that deputies are involved in the usual manner. This is wrong, because a significant part of such situations is connected with political activity,” the communist noted.

Currently, there is no special procedure for bringing regional deputies to administrative responsibility imposed in court.

It exists only when brought to criminal responsibility, explains Alexei Elaev, senior lecturer at the Western Branch of the RANEPA: p. 11, part 1, art. 448 of the Code of Criminal Procedure provides that in order to initiate a criminal case or bring a deputy as an accused, the consent of the head of the investigative body of the ICR for the constituent entity of the Russian Federation is required. “The bill also proposes exceptions for deputies from the general procedure for considering cases in relation to special subjects after their initiation, provided for in Part 1 of Art. 450 Code of Criminal Procedure. It is proposed that a petition for the detention of regional deputies should also be initiated on the proposal of the head of the investigative committee of the subject and considered not by the district court, as it is now, but by the Supreme Court of the corresponding subject of the Russian Federation, ”the lawyer notes. At the same time, in his opinion, the legal technique of the project “does not allow us to conclude that there are significant chances for its adoption by the Duma”: in particular, instead of amending the procedural codes, amendments to the law on public authority are proposed.

The head of the Petersburg Politics Foundation, Mikhail Vinogradov, believes that if adopted, these amendments would help protect regional deputies “from minor blows and injections.” “Therefore, the initiative as a whole is logical, although difficult to implement,” the expert concludes.

Ksenia Veretennikova