The vertical stood

The Constitutional Court recognized governors as subordinates of the president

Russian governors have finally turned into government top managers subordinate to the president. The final fusion of new links in Vladimir Putin’s vertical of power can be considered the verdict of the Constitutional Court announced yesterday in the high-profile “gubernatorial case.” Representatives of the Union of Right Forces, who appealed to the Constitutional Court with a complaint about certain provisions of the law “On the general principles of organization of legislative (representative) and executive bodies of state power of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation”, updated at the end of last year, failed to shake the notorious vertical, the creation of which the Kremlin de facto completed by abolishing with the help of the State Duma, direct gubernatorial elections.

Not a shadow of doubt about the correctness of such a step and its legality was noticed in the verdict of the Constitutional Court. The court found the president's powers to propose candidates for regional heads under threat of dissolving regional legislative assemblies as constitutional. And at the same time, he avoided answering another fundamental question posed to the Constitutional Court by the initiators of the process - whether the head of state at his own discretion (formally - for loss of confidence) remove governors and dissolve regional parliaments.

This position shocked the complainants. “Brilliant! - one of the applicants, secretary of the political council of the Union of Right Forces party Boris Nadezhdin, assessed the actions of the chairman of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin. “Now everyone is convinced that even the Constitutional Court, which is radically different from the “Basmanny justice,” has difficulties with independence.” But several members of the Constitutional Court were also shocked. Two judges - Vladimir Yaroslavtsev and Anatoly Kononov - considered it necessary to issue a dissenting opinion. “This decision is a blow for me,” Mr. Kononov told reporters after the verdict was announced. “The new procedure for appointing governors does not fit into the text of the Constitution, not to mention its spirit.” At the same time, in a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, Anatoly Kononov noted that, in his opinion, the constitutional powers of government bodies cannot be expanded by laws. “The fact that citizens’ rights were taken away does not fit into the Constitution,” says the lawyer.

Let us recall that in November, during a two-day trial in the Constitutional Court, the applicants outlined their main complaints about the new procedure for vesting powers with governors, the dissolution of legislative assemblies in the event of repeated rejection of the governor’s candidacy proposed by the head of state, and the removal of the head of the region by the president. Moreover, the second and third parts of the complaints seemed well-reasoned, since at one time the Constitutional Court had already outlined the conditions for such personnel steps. To remove a governor from office, a court-established offense that has dangerous consequences is necessary, and if we are talking about parliament, the adoption of a special federal law. However, the Constitutional Court decided that these norms were not applied to the applicants, among whom there were neither removed governors nor dismissed regional deputies.

However, the rest of the rules of the court’s ruling rather looked like more than just approval of the regional reform initiated by the Kremlin - the Constitutional Court made a number of conclusions, some of which in the future may become the basis for further deepening the vertical of power in the regions. For example, the decision states that “the federal legislator has the right to choose the most effective mechanisms for organizing state power, including when vesting powers with state authorities and officials in respect of whom the corresponding procedure is not directly provided for in the Constitution of the Russian Federation.” In addition, the Constitutional Court came to the conclusion that “the federal legislator considers the highest official of a constituent entity of the Russian Federation as an element of the executive power,” and “according to his status, this official is in a relationship of subordination directly with the President of the Russian Federation.”

As for the right of active participation of the president in vesting powers with the heads of regions, the Constitutional Court also did not see this as a violation of the balance of power of the region and the federation, since the final decision is formally made by the legislative assembly, which consults on the candidacy with the head of state. Finally, according to the Constitutional Court, direct elections of regional heads are not spelled out in the Constitution at all. The court believes that the will of the people can in this case be exercised through electors in the regional parliament.

However, with this decision the Constitutional Court clearly could not put an end to the dispute. And he even indirectly pointed out what paths opponents of the abolition of direct gubernatorial elections should take next. “This decision has no consequences for our complaint, since the proceedings in our case were stopped, which opens the way for us to repeat complaints,” Boris Nadezhdin told Vremya Novostey. In addition, according to him, people whose rights, in their opinion, have been violated, can now safely apply to the Constitutional Court. There are no deputies from dissolved parliaments yet, but there are already governors in Russia who have been removed without trial - the head of the Koryak Autonomous Okrug, Vladimir Loginov, lost his position at the beginning of 2005 for disrupting the heating season. “Such a case will be won one hundred percent,” the SPS representative is confident. “And these are certain guarantees that no one can be dismissed or removed from office.”

Yuri KOLESOV