Question of questions

Yesterday's meeting of the Legislative Assembly ended with a political sensation: the city parliament adopted as a basis the appeal prepared by the Democratic faction to the Constitutional Court, where the key principle of the law “on monetization” is questioned, namely, the replacement of benefits with monetary compensation. Only United Russia member Viktor Evtukhov expressed criticism. Everyone else unanimously supported the idea of ​​appealing to the Constitutional Court and finally finding out whether the provisions of Law No. 122 correspond to the Russian Constitution (it seems that the whole country has already memorized this number).

The essence of the appeal is simple: once you compare the amount of compensation offered to beneficiaries and the monetary value of the canceled benefits, the discrepancy will be noticeable to the naked eye. Meanwhile, Article 55 of the Constitution establishes that “in the Russian Federation no laws should be issued that abolish or diminish the rights and freedoms of man and citizen.” At the same time, as it is easy to calculate, the rights of participants and veterans of the war, as well as survivors of the siege (the Legislative Assembly’s request concentrates attention on them) turn out to be much less in comparison with those that were previously provided to them in accordance with the Federal Law “On Veterans”. So much so that this should be considered as their partial cancellation. Which does not correspond to either the Constitution or international covenants ratified by Russia.
Acceptance of the appeal was one of the demands put forward to the deputies by the protest participants. True, it turned out to be the only one that was accepted: all the others were not even included on the agenda.
This is the fate that befell the draft law, which gives the right to receive an additional payment to a pension up to the subsistence minimum starting from the age of 60, and not from 65, as now. The same thing happened with the project of appealing to the governor with demands to return socio-political programs to the live broadcast of St. Petersburg TV and give the opposition the opportunity to freely discuss city problems. Parliamentarians also refused to put forward a legislative initiative in the State Duma to ensure that governors would continue to be elected in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Finally, the draft law on the introduction of preferential travel cards for students and schoolchildren was not included on the agenda. But this project, it seems, still has a chance of being adopted - at the next meeting...
And yet the “street” showed that it can achieve results. After all, if it weren’t for the protest rallies and if it weren’t for the representatives of the protesters watching the meeting from the balcony of the Great Hall, most likely the deputies would not have accepted the appeal to the Constitutional Court.
By the way, it has a chance to become the first in the country - so far not a single regional parliament (not to mention governors) has decided to take such a step.

Vladimir MAKSIMOV