Another 16 years of Putin: in Russia came up with a cunning amendment to the Constitution

Deputies of the Russian State Duma approved the amendments to the Constitution by Russian President Vladimir Putin in the second reading. At the last moment, amendments were made to the text of the bill to hold early parliamentary elections and reset Putin’s presidential terms. After this, the president himself came to the Duma and expressed his attitude towards these initiatives - and in the end, only one of them was approved. Writes about this with the BBC.

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There will be no early elections, but resetting the deadlines is possible

Putin's amendments themselves were not actually discussed at the meeting - deputies voted without discussion in support of the main table, which contained the president's proposals. The third reading of the bill will take place in the Duma on Wednesday, March 11, at which time the Federation Council should also consider it. After this, the document must be approved by two-thirds of the regional parliaments, and the amendments will also be checked by the Constitutional Court.

It was expected that after Putin signed the law, the Central Election Commission would begin preparations for the all-Russian vote - and if the document was supported by the majority of voters, it would finally come into force.

Before the plenary session, the LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, talking with reporters, expressed a proposal to hold early elections to the State Duma.

“Because a new parliament with renewed powers must act,” he explained this idea.

At the meeting itself, this proposal was made by a member of United Russia, former wrestler Alexander Karelin. He was supported by the leader of A Just Russia, Sergei Mironov. Only the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov spoke out against it.

The Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin, who had previously called the data on the possibility of early elections fake and interference in Russian affairs, did not object to the idea of ​​Karelin, allowing the amendment to be made right in the course of the meeting.

Later, United Russia deputy Valentina Tereshkova came up with another new proposal - to reset the presidential term for the current president or to remove the limit on the number of presidential terms from the Constitution in principle. Volodin said that this required discussion with the president and left to call him, announcing a break.

Soon Putin himself appeared in the Duma. He was opposed to excluding restrictions on presidential terms from the basic law. At the same time, he considered it possible to nullify the deadlines for the incumbent if the Constitutional Court approved the amendment.

After this, the deputies did not consider Karelin’s amendment to hold early elections, and supported the proposal to reset presidential terms; only the Communist Party faction was against it.

What has changed since the first reading

The second reading of the document was, in fact, the main one - by the third, which will take place on Wednesday, only linguistic corrections can be made to the document. This means that at the all-Russian vote, Russians will be asked to speak on the amendments that deputies approved on Tuesday.

Previously, the working group for preparing the amendments proposed holding a vote on April 22, a date approved by Vladimir Putin. But by the second reading of the bill, the date disappeared from the text - now it says that voting is scheduled by presidential decree and held no earlier than 30 days after its publication.

Putin voiced the concept of his reform during a message to the Federal Assembly on January 15. BBC sources said that this came as a surprise not only to Russians, but also to many officials.

Just a few days later, the original version of the bill was submitted to the Duma, which on January 23, after a short discussion, adopted the document in first reading. Then it contained a total of 22 edits.

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Putin’s main proposals are strengthening the role of the State Council, reducing the number of judges of the Constitutional Court and the president’s right to dismiss them, tightening requirements for candidates for elected positions (including raising the residency requirement for the future president from 15 to 25 years), as well as social amendments - consolidation in the Constitution the subsistence level is at the level of the minimum wage and indexation of pensions.

In addition, Putin proposed strengthening the role of the Duma in appointing the government and giving it the right to coordinate the candidacies of all ministers, removing the word “consecutive” from the rule that allows citizens to be elected president for no more than two terms. Another high-profile amendment concerned the consolidation of the priority of the Constitution over international law.

Since then, the constitutional reform project has more than doubled in size - it now contains more than four dozen proposals. It was assumed that the document would be approved in the second reading in mid-February, but in the end the deadline for submitting amendments was postponed twice.

Belief in God and empowerment of the president

By March, “ideological” amendments appeared in the document, many of which were advised to Putin by members of the working group on the Constitution - cultural figures and social activists.

The Basic Law will include amendments on faith in God (which was passed on to Russians by their “ancestors”), consolidation of the institution of marriage as a union of a man and a woman (the state will assume responsibilities for its protection) and a ban on “diminishing the significance of the people’s feat in defending the Fatherland.” These amendments to his own bill were introduced by Putin himself on the last day when this was legally possible.

In addition, the president proposed giving the Russian language the status of “the language of the state-forming people”, and making children the “most important asset” of the country - the state will create conditions for “instilling in them patriotism, citizenship and respect for elders.” For the second reading, the wording about children was adjusted - they will be considered “the most important priority of Russian state policy.”

In a month from the first reading, the document was overgrown with political amendments. Most of them were proposed by a group of deputies and senators led by the co-chairs of the constitutional commission Pavel Krasheninnikov and Andrei Klishas.

Some proposals concern strengthening of presidential powers, although the original concept of the reform was to partially weaken them. For example, although the Duma will have the right to approve ministers and deputy prime ministers, the president, in turn, will have the right to dissolve it if more than a third of his candidates are not approved. In addition, former presidents will have the right to serve as a senator for life, and the prime minister will bear “personal responsibility” to the head of state.

New judicial amendments were added to the document for the second reading - for example, the Constitutional Court will have the right to overturn decisions of international arbitration if it has imposed obligations on Russia (for example, the decision of the Hague court, according to which Moscow must pay $50 billion to former shareholders, fits this case YUKOS).

What the experts said

The document and procedure proposed by Putin was actively criticized by electoral lawyers and constitutional law experts for two months.

Firstly, some experts considered the procedure for all-Russian voting, which was proposed by the president, unconstitutional - the current Constitution provides that changes to chapters 3-8 come into force after they have been approved by two-thirds of regional parliaments. The main law also does not contain a procedure for reviewing a bill by the Constitutional Court - it will have such a right only after the adoption of the current amendments.

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Lawyers also drew attention to the fact that, according to the current norms, the law on amendments to the Constitution must “cover interrelated changes in the constitutional text,” while Putin’s proposals, which are adopted as a package, affect areas from social to political.

Some experts also believe that the presidential bill actually affects the first two chapters of the Constitution - on the foundations of the constitutional system and the rights and freedoms of citizens, although it does not formally concern them. Lawyers considered the norm on the State Council, which, in their opinion, could violate the principle of separation of powers, and the desire to consolidate the priority of the Constitution over international law, as problematic.

Zeroing Putin's deadlines

The amendment introduced by deputy Valentina Tereshkova launches a mechanism for resetting presidential terms - if the change is accepted, they will begin to count from the moment the amendment to Part 3 of Article 81 of the Constitution, which limits these terms, writes with the BBC.

Now this article prohibits the same person from holding the position of President of Russia “for more than two consecutive terms.” If the constitutional change is approved at the all-Russian vote, the word “consecutive” will be deleted, and it will be possible to be elected to the presidency only twice.

However, according to Tereshkova’s amendment, the term and even multiple terms that the president has already held may not be taken into account at all after changing the rules of the Constitution limiting them. The current president has the right to run for office again - and the countdown of his terms will begin anew.

Moreover, if the legislator once again changes Part 3 of Article 81 of the Constitution - for example, reduces or increases the number of deadlines - they may be reset for the current president again.

What the Constitutional Court (CC) said about the third term for Boris Yeltsin

The mechanism that Tereshkov proposed and supported by the State Duma directly contradicts the interpretation of the same part of Article 3 of the Constitution, which the Constitutional Court gave in 81, considering whether Boris Yeltsin has the right to run for president for the third time in 1998.

Then the Kremlin proposed not to take into account the moment of Yeltsin’s election to this post in 1991 - until the adoption of the 1993 Constitution (new elections were not called then). Despite the fact that the question of a third term was raised in connection with the adoption of another fundamental law and the replacement of the name of the country (RSFSR with the Russian Federation), the Constitutional Court then supported the State Duma that addressed it with a request (it opposed the extension of Yeltsin’s powers) and unequivocally opposed the nullification of the first presidential term.

“Voters, voting in 1996 for the candidacy of the current President of the Russian Federation, proceeded from the fact that they were electing him for a second term of office,” the Constitutional Court pointed out.

The Constitutional Court recognized the arguments that the limitation of the duration of the powers of the same president to two consecutive terms established by part 3 of Article 81 of the Constitution “applies only to the case when both terms took place entirely during the period of validity of the current Constitution” as contradicting “the will of the people expressed in the elections "

The president himself, as the guarantor of the Constitution, “has repeatedly publicly stated that at the next elections in 2000 he will not run for the position of president, because this would be a violation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and that he does not intend to seek to change it for the sake of nominating his candidacy.”

A similar position was repeatedly expressed by Vladimir Putin.

Formally, the initiators of the State Duma’s request for Yeltsin’s “third term” were Yabloko members, including current senator Elena Mizulina. However, the request was prepared in the Kremlin, and the Constitutional Court “treated it with horror” and considered it only eight months after its receipt.

“Some people really like to feel like they are the arbiters of state destinies, but we will ruin ourselves by doing this,” one of the judges told Kommersant. As a result, the decision that it was impossible for the current president to run again after the expiration of the maximum number of terms was made when Yeltsin no longer intended to run for a new term.

The decision of the Constitutional Court of 1998 states that there is no uncertainty in the interpretation of the same part 3 of Article 81 of the Constitution, the new edition of which it will have to check. The definition states that it is final and “binding on all federal authorities.” Six of the current 1998 judges of the Constitutional Court, including its current chairman Valery Zorkin, participated in its adoption in 15.

Representing the president in the Constitutional Court in 1998, Mikhail Mityukov refused to comment on a new appeal to the court to nullify the deadlines.

How will the Constitutional Court decide the third term for Putin

No special procedures for approval by the Constitutional Court of the right of Vladimir Putin to run for president in 2024, adopted by the State Duma, amendments to the Constitution do not contain.

This means that the Constitutional Court will only have to verify, at the president’s request, their content in the general package of amendments for compliance with chapters 1, 2 and 9 of the Constitution. The question of whether the Constitutional Court will be able to approve the new version of Article 81 on the presidential term without taking into account its own interpretation of this article, the lawyers interviewed by the BBC consider it no longer meaningful.

“There are no legal grounds for resetting the deadlines. The purpose and meaning of the constitutional limit on presidential terms in part 3 of Article 81 of the Constitution is to prevent a person from being in power for too long, since this is fraught with abuse,” says constitutional law expert Professor Ilya Shablinsky.

The Constitutional Court has repeatedly spoken about this, he notes. There is also no procedure in which the Constitutional Court should evaluate this, as well as other amendments, the lawyer recalled. However, in his opinion, “there is virtually no chance that the Constitutional Court will not approve this, as well as other amendments.”

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Another constitutional law expert agrees with this, citing the pointlessness of the discussion in the current situation. The Constitutional Court, according to him, has previously changed its positions to the opposite - for example, on the issue of canceling gubernatorial elections.

In the same way, the Constitutional Court will not be bound by its own decisions - both on the third presidential term and on the fact that it cannot exercise preliminary control over amendments to the Constitution without endowing it with this right by the Constitution itself and the federal constitutional law on the Constitutional Court, the expert believes.

“The Constitutional Court, according to the amendment to the Constitution, will have to check the content of the remaining amendments for compliance with Articles 1, 2 and 9 of the Basic Law. Therefore, the Constitutional Court may not remember its legal position on nullifying presidential terms in the interpretation of Article 81 of the Constitution,” says Sergei Popov, vice-president of the Federal Union of Lawyers, who was a member of the State Duma Committee on Constitutional Legislation from 1995 to 2007.

He added that “Valentina Tereshkova will now be remembered not as the first female cosmonaut, but as the author of the amendment to reset the deadlines.”

In accordance with amendments to the Basic Law, the Constitutional Court, consisting of 15 active judges, should be reduced to 2021 people by 11. All 11 judges, with the exception of Valery Zorkin, who will remain in the Constitutional Court after the four judges of the “Yeltsin call” reach the age limit, were appointed to the Constitutional Court after Vladimir Putin became president.

The history of Putin’s presidency

In August 1999, Vladimir Putin headed the Russian State Duma. At that moment, Boris Yeltsin was president. Soon, Yeltsin declared him his successor. After Yeltsin resigned early on December 31, 1999, Putin became the acting president of Russia.

In March 2000, Putin was first elected president of the Russian Federation. And in 2004 he was elected for a second term. In May 2008, Putin transferred power to the former head of his Administration, Dmitry Medvedev, and he himself became prime minister.

After Medvedev ended his presidency in 2012, Putin became president for the third time. Although the Constitution of Russia states that the same person can be elected president “for no more than two consecutive terms.” During Putin’s third term, presidential powers were increased to six years, and for the fourth time he became head of the country in March 2018, his current cadence will last until 2024.

The amendment to the Constitution of Russia, adopted on March 10, 2020, if approved by the Constitutional Court, will allow Putin to take the post of head of the Kremlin for two more terms - from 2024 to 2036.

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