United Russia – Newspaper Kommersant No. 170 (7371) of 09/15/2022

The Commission on Local Self-Government of the Novosibirsk City Council on Wednesday supported the initiative of the United Russia (ER) faction and recommended that colleagues propose to the State Duma to expand the list of grounds for the early termination of the powers of municipal deputies. According to United Russia, a mandate can be taken away from a people’s choice if he has been outside Russia for more than a year. Two deputies potentially fall under this norm in Novosibirsk at once – the oppositionists Helga Pirogova and Sergei Boyko, who left the country.

The list of grounds for the early termination of the powers of deputies is fixed in the federal law “On the general principles of the organization of local self-government.” In addition to death, voluntary resignation, recognition as incapacitated or missing, and the entry into force of a court conviction, these include leaving the Russian Federation for permanent residence and the termination of Russian citizenship. Novosibirsk United Russia proposes to supplement the list with one more item – “continuous absence on the territory of the Russian Federation for a period of more than one year.”

According to the draft appeal to the State Duma (Kommersant has a copy), the reason for the initiative was the departure of one of the deputies from the Russian Federation. He has been there for “about a year”, explaining his absence by a long business trip, but he does not specify the timing of his return, the document says. United Russia considers it “unacceptable” that the activity of this deputy depends on assistants and means of communication, and the residents of his constituency are deprived of the opportunity to contact him “promptly and personally, including as part of a personal reception.” At the same time, the city council does not have information about this deputy’s right to permanent residence abroad and therefore cannot deprive him of his authority under the current law.

The name of the chosen one is not disclosed in the document, but it is obviously about the ex-head of the Novosibirsk headquarters of Alexei Navalny (the network of headquarters is recognized as an extremist organization and banned in the Russian Federation) Sergey Boyko. He left Russia in the fall of 2021, saying he feared arrest in a criminal case for creating an extremist community. The media reported that Mr. Boyko left for Greece. Then the speaker of the City Duma and the leader of the United Russia faction, Dmitry Asantsev, said that Sergey Boyko was not in danger of being deprived of his powers due to the very fact of leaving: this requires a court decision that the deputy performed his duties improperly. Also, the revocation of the mandate can be initiated by the election committee – in this case, the residents of the district will be asked to vote, Mr. Asantsev explained.

Since the end of July 2022, another independent deputy of the City Council, Helga Pirogova, has also been abroad. She was reported to have gone to Georgia. She was put on the wanted list in a criminal case on the dissemination of fakes about the armed forces of the Russian Federation (part 1 of article 207.3 of the Criminal Code). Mrs. Pirogova is listed as a member of the City Council Commission on Local Self-Government, but she could not take part in the meeting, at least remotely. According to the Telegram channel “Coalition-2020” (which unites a number of independent deputies of Novosibirsk), the authorities refused to connect the deputy to the work via video conferencing, citing the insecurity of this channel.

The EP initiative raised questions from other members of the commission. So, Georgy Andreev (KPRF) recalled that an independent deputy Rostislav Antonov, who was appointed in June as a freelance adviser to the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic, is in the Donbass. The communist did not rule out that Mr. Antonov’s stay abroad could be delayed and lead to the deprivation of the mandate. In addition, he asked to explain why the border of the Russian Federation, and not the border of the Siberian Federal District or any other, is an obstacle to the implementation of deputy activities. “You cut off not only our colleagues who ended up abroad against their will, but also those who fell ill, on a business trip, for some reason in another city in the Russian Federation,” added Svetlana Kaverzina, an independent deputy.

“It was just such a cut-off,” answered the question about the one-year absence of the chairman of the commission, Igor Atyakshev (ER). And Irina Bespechnaya (ER) suggested not attaching much importance to the deadline, since the document under discussion is “just an appeal”. In her opinion, if the initiative takes the form of a bill, then it will undergo a detailed study in the State Duma. As a result, the commission, by the votes of United Russia, recommended that the city council adopt an appeal to the federal parliament.

“This, obviously, is a targeted decision and an attempt to rid us of deputy mandates in any way,” Helga Pirogova told Kommersant. “The very possibility of doing this does not fit with Russian laws, but looking back at the legality now is probably a comical thing. We are representatives of our constituents, they have given us this mandate to represent their interests. With what fright does a limited handful of the same elected deputies want to deprive us of this mandate?

It was not possible to get a quick comment from Sergei Boyko to Kommersant, but Rostislav Antonov responded from Mariupol. “This proposal makes sense,” he said. “It is not the voters’ fault that a deputy may disagree with the current legislation. In my opinion, the deputies who left Russia, not at the request of the law, but out of respect for their voters, should resign. Although, I think, both Sergei Boyko and Helga Pirogova could be good people’s deputies. Mr. Antonov added that this rule is hardly applicable to him, since since the beginning of his work in the Donbass, he “has not missed a single session of the City Council without a good reason and has not curtailed work in the constituency.”

We add that there are municipal deputies who left the country in other regions of Russia. For example, in December 2021, the opposition deputy of the Tomsk City Duma Andrey Fateev went abroad. The reason was the criminal prosecution of his comrade-in-arms and colleague Ksenia Fadeeva.

Valery Lavsky, Novosibirsk