It was malfunctioning

The Moscow City Duma refused to fight with St. Petersburg for the Constitutional Court

Deputies of the Moscow City Duma, elected from United Russia, found themselves in a very difficult situation yesterday. They were put in this position by Sergei Mitrokhin, who represents the opposition faction “Yabloko - United Democrats” in the capital’s parliament. At yesterday's meeting, he invited his colleagues to express their opinion regarding the proposed transfer of the Constitutional Court from Moscow to St. Petersburg and to appeal to the President of Russia with a demand to leave the highest judicial body in its rightful place.

“The transfer of the Constitutional Court will inevitably lead to long-term disorganization in its work, which cannot but affect the right of citizens to a quick and fair hearing of their cases,” said Mr. Mitrokhin, presenting the text of the appeal to his colleagues. In addition, the huge funds that will be required to transfer the court, according to the deputy, would be more expediently spent “on the repair of buildings and other needs of courts of general jurisdiction.”

Let us recall that the draft translation of the Constitutional Court earned the highest approval from Vladimir Putin, but was received with skepticism by Yuri Luzhkov. Demonstrating their loyalty to both the mayor and the president, the capital's United Russia members have recently tried not to raise the sensitive topic of transferring part of the capital's functions to St. Petersburg, waiting until the party leaders agree among themselves and send down the official and only correct point of view. Therefore, yesterday Moscow legislators tried to avoid voting if possible.

The head of the United Russia faction, Andrei Metelsky, immediately stated that the issue was beyond the competence of the Moscow City Duma, and proposed to remove it from consideration. Deputy Mikhail Moskvin-Tarkhanov, also a member of United Russia, said that he does not understand at all why contact the president on this issue: “To transfer the court, it is necessary to make changes to the constitutional laws, which are adopted by two-thirds of the State Duma deputies and three-quarters of the Council members Federation. The president does not sign these laws at all.” As for the essence of the problem, according to the deputy, when resolving such important issues, one should not appeal to the opinion of voters represented by the Moscow City Duma at all. “If you ask Muscovites themselves, nine out of ten say: “Even if they all move out of here, life will be easier for us.” And in St. Petersburg they say: “We don’t want them to come,” said Mr. Moskvin-Tarkhanov. He was immediately supported by Mr. Metelsky. “The Moscow City Duma should deal with issues of an urban scale. If a decision has been made at the federal level to transfer the court, then they know better,” said the leader of the city’s United Russia.

After observing his colleagues, Yabloko member Evgeniy Bunimovich took the floor. Noting that the Constitutional Court was lucky that the president was born in St. Petersburg, and not somewhere far away, Mr. Bunimovich proposed “to put all government bodies on rails so that they follow the presidents around the country.” The communists also decided to support Yabloko and demand that the president leave the Constitutional Court alone. “This is not a matter of formalities, the question is essentially: do we support the transfer or not,” said Vladimir Ulas, saying that the Communist Party faction in the State Duma will vote against moving the Constitutional Court.

Moscow City Duma Speaker Vladimir Platonov tried to reconcile the parties and find a political compromise. Referring to the fact that the draft appeal did not include a calculation of the costs of moving the court, the speaker called the document “crude.” Andrei Metelsky immediately agreed with him and stated that the United Russia faction would not support such an unfinished appeal. After which ordinary Moscow United Russia members obediently voted against the project, essentially agreeing with the transfer of the Constitutional Court to St. Petersburg.

At this point it was time to close the meeting, but then it turned out that two representatives of United Russia still supported the Yabloko members. Moreover, Mr. Platonov himself and the faction leader Andrei Metelsky voted for the appeal. The astonished deputies were completely satisfied with the speaker’s explanations, who attributed this demarche to technical problems. “The electronic voting system failed. My colleague Metelsky and I also voted against, but our votes were counted in favor,” said Vladimir Platonov, and everyone considered the incident settled. However, after the meeting it became clear that no one was going to correct the consequences of the “failure.” “Unfortunately, we did not have time to make a protocol decision about the system failure, but, fortunately, our two votes did not in any way affect the outcome of the vote,” Messrs. said. Metelsky and Platonov after the meeting. Thus, in the electronic memory and archives of the Moscow City Duma there will remain a special position of the two leaders of the Moscow “United Russia”, who will be able to “raise the protocols” if suddenly the decision to transfer the Constitutional Court from the capital to St. Petersburg is recognized as erroneous at the highest level.

Alexander GUDKOV