What will the State Duma do in April?

The key items on the April State Duma agenda will be the annual reports of the heads of government and the Bank of Russia. At the same time, deputies intend to consider a number of notable initiatives, including those initiated by the White House. Thus, important bills in the field of migration policy, electoral legislation and support for elite sports received their first reading. In addition, traditionally, the agenda includes documents aimed at providing social guarantees for SVO participants and their families.

According to the calendar approved last week, in April deputies will hear two annual reports: on April 3, Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin will speak in the State Duma, and on April 10, its chairman Elvira Nabiullina will speak about the work of the Bank of Russia.

The Duma will open the first plenary week of the month on April 2 by considering two initiatives in the field of migration policy. Thus, a bill aimed at combating fictitious marriages of foreigners with Russians for the sake of obtaining Russian citizenship has seen its first reading. Its authors – a group of senators and deputies led by the chairman of the Federation Council Committee on State Construction Andrei Klishas – propose issuing temporary residence permits (TRP) on family grounds only after two years have passed from the date of marriage of the applicant with a citizen of the Russian Federation. An extraordinary residence permit (RP) to parents (adoptive parents or guardians) of Russian children, according to parliamentarians, can only be issued if the child was born in a valid marriage with a Russian. It is proposed to disavow migration status in cases where the marriage is declared invalid by the court or if the act of establishing paternity (adoption) of a child who is a citizen of the Russian Federation was canceled by the court. The bill has already been supported by the government, subject to a number of comments.

Another migration initiative concerns participants in the state repatriation program – refusers of Russian citizenship or former citizens of the USSR who lived or were born on the territory of what is now Russia. The bill of the head of the Duma Committee on Relations with Compatriots Leonid Kalashnikov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) provides for the issuance of a residence permit to such applicants without obtaining a temporary residence permit “after undergoing mandatory state fingerprint registration and submitting medical documents.” The document was supported by the government without reservations.

The April plans of the deputies also include consideration of two bills related to election processes. On April 2, the lower house will study the amendments of Anzhelika Glazkova (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) to the law on the referendum, which were not supported by the relevant committee and the government commission. The communist proposes to allow citizens to submit to a plebiscite the issue of early termination of the powers of the president or the current convocation of the State Duma, as well as to reduce the number of signatures required for a referendum from 2 million to 500 thousand and increase the period for collecting them from 45 to 60 days.

At the plenary session on April 9, deputies will consider a government bill clarifying the electoral legislation regarding the registration of candidates for elections at different levels. The amendments were developed to implement a decision of the Constitutional Court, which last summer ruled that typos in the data of individual candidates included in party lists cannot serve as grounds for automatic invalidation and removal of the entire list from elections. The judges made this decision following the consideration of a complaint from the Orenburg branch of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which referred to the corresponding precedent in September 2022.

In total, deputies will have to consider 14 government bills in April. In particular, the Duma will consider a bill on the National Dictionary Fund, which, as Kommersant previously reported, will be “a set of information about language norms contained in dictionaries.” It is expected that thanks to this digital platform, citizens will be able to quickly search for and receive information about the “norms of the modern Russian literary language.”

Two bills scheduled for consideration on April 9 expand social guarantees for SVO participants and their families, as well as for Heroes of Russia and full holders of the Order of Glory. The first initiative, introduced by a group of senators and deputies from different factions, led by the Secretary of the General Council of United Russia Andrei Turchak, provides for additional support for disabled children and people with disabilities from childhood from the families of SVO participants. Parliamentarians propose to grant the right to simultaneously receive survivor benefits and a social (disability) pension to children who have lost their parents “due to death during military service or stay in a volunteer formation, as well as death due to a military injury after dismissal from military service or stay in a volunteer formation.” The Government Commission on Legislative Activities supported the bill, subject to revision taking into account comments of a legal and technical nature. Conceptually, the government also approved the initiative to grant Heroes of the Russian Federation and full holders of the Order of Glory the right to an extraordinary provision of free land for farming. The document, introduced by a group of United Russia members led by the same Andrei Turchak, stipulates the transfer of this right to a family member of the applicant in the event of his death.

Four “physical education and sports” initiatives have also been announced for consideration on April 9. Two were introduced by the relevant Duma committee headed by Dmitry Svishchev (LDPR) and relate to the procedure for holding and financing the Games of the Future in Kazan, as well as giving legal status to children’s physical education and health centers. The third was developed by an inter-factional group of deputies led by Rimma Batalova (United Russia): the bill provides benefits for athletes who win international competitions, the list of which will be approved by the government, when entering specialized specialties at universities. “Such competitions could be, for example, the World Friendship Games, the Games of the Future, the Games of the BRICS Countries,” the explanatory note clarifies. These three documents are recommended for adoption, subject to some modifications.

But the government did not support the LDPR’s initiative to make it mandatory to raise the Russian flag during physical culture and sports ceremonies, considering it excessive. Along with it, support was also denied to the bill of Vice Speaker Vladislav Davankov (“New People”), who proposed counting the statute of limitations for administrative offenses related to posts on social networks from the moment of their publication, and not their discovery.

We also note that from April 15 to April 21, deputies will work in the districts, and the last week of the month is included in the schedule of the lower house as vacation. However, for many parliamentarians the rest will be conditional: during this period they will take part in the events of the Council of Legislators on the eve of the Day of Russian Parliamentarism, and will also begin preparations for the approval of the prime minister and members of the new government.

Grigory Leiba