| Local parliamentarians abandoned their dispute with the president in the Constitutional Court The Yaroslavl Regional Duma decided yesterday not to send a request to the Constitutional Court about the legality of the procedure for electing governors. The question of withdrawing the request, which questioned the legality of the abolition of direct gubernatorial elections, was raised at the initiative of the United Russia and Agrarian Party factions. Deputies from United Russia called on their colleagues not to engage in political demagogy, “to understand the situation in the country and not to shake the fragile balance.”
The initiators of the request, led by the chairman of the commission on legislation and issues of local self-government of the Yaroslavl Regional Duma, deputy Oleg Vinogradov, tried to reproach their otzovist colleagues for “losing face and honor” and for playing the “role of a non-commissioned officer’s widow.” The discussion dragged on for almost two hours.
Naturally, Governor of the Yaroslavl Region Anatoly Lisitsyn took the side of opponents of the request to the Constitutional Court, declaring that “appealing to the court on the issue of compliance with the Constitution of the Russian Federation of the president’s new powers to nominate candidates for heads of regions is an opportunistic political action of a number of deputies who want to get political glasses in the background." According to the governor, “deputies should not go against the current law, which is already in effect throughout Russia; it is supported by the population and regions.”
Mr. Lisitsyn, addressing his overly obstinate parliamentarians, emphasized that he knows “the Moscow corridors of power” and understands that “a possible confrontation between the region and the federal center will have a negative impact on resolving issues of the development of the Yaroslavl region and the implementation of certain major development projects ". Before voting to withdraw the request, several deputies who opposed this decision left the meeting room. As a result of a roll-call vote, 27 deputies voted for withdrawing the request, three voted against, and one abstained.
Let us recall that last week deputies of the Yaroslavl regional parliament decided to appeal to the Constitutional Court of Russia with a request for a new procedure for approving governors. The idea of opposing the presidential decision and preserving the popularly elected head of the region was voiced by parliamentarians back in May, when changes were made to the region’s charter. At the same time, a compromise decision was made - the deputies would accept changes to the charter, but a month later they would return to this issue and accept an appeal to the Constitutional Court. However, Yaroslavl legislators were able to return to the gubernatorial issue only at the end of September. On September 27, 26 out of 50 deputies spoke in favor of sending the request.
As Vremya Novostey was told in the press center of the regional Duma, this request should have been properly completed and sent to the Constitutional Court within ten days. The Yaroslavl “Fronde” began to be discussed in the media; activists of the Union of Right Forces, Yabloko and Committee 2008 voiced words of support. However, the matter did not reach the point of sending the request to the Constitutional Court. Starting from September 28, representatives of various factions of the Yaroslavl parliament began to look for a reason to reconsider the decision. In particular, deputy Pyotr Gubochkin even blamed the voting system, which “didn’t think so.”
However, Oleg Vinogradov, who called yesterday “the day of the coward,” and other supporters of the request do not despair: the Constitutional Court already has two requests from persons not burdened with deputy mandates. On June 27 of this year, representatives of the Union of Right Forces filed a complaint with the Constitutional Court, declaring that “the currently established procedure for appointing governors contradicts the Constitution of the country, in particular federalism.” The Union of Right Forces considers this law to be contrary to the Constitution, both in terms of the direct appointment of governors and in terms of the possibility of the Russian President dissolving regional parliaments if the candidacy submitted by the President is rejected twice. The right also considers the president’s right to remove governors from office due to “loss of confidence” to be unconstitutional. Only the first part of the complaint was accepted for consideration. In June of this year, the Constitutional Court also accepted for consideration a complaint about the unconstitutionality of the law on the new procedure for electing governors from citizen Vladimir Grishkevich from Tyumen. Alexey BELOV, Yaroslavl |
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