Translated material
"Anti-civil" act
The State Duma slightly violated the Constitution
On Wednesday, the State Duma voted by 426 votes to approve in the first reading a law prohibiting persons with dual citizenship from being members of the Federation Council, State Duma deputies, and deputies of regional legislative assemblies. Chairman of the Central Election Commission Alexander Veshnyakov reacted harshly to such an initiative, hinting at the deputies’ poor knowledge of the Constitution.“This will contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation,” the head of the Central Election Commission explained to reporters. “Nowhere does it say that a person with dual citizenship cannot be elected.” Alexander Veshnyakov recalled that Article 32 of the Constitution states: every citizen of Russia has the right to vote and be elected. Moreover, the presence of dual citizenship does not contradict Russian legislation - with some countries Russia has concluded an agreement on dual citizenship (for example, with Israel and Egypt). Nevertheless, Mr. Veshnyakov did not deny the existence of the problem, but suggested solving it in other ways.
The problem of dual citizenship especially aroused the chairman of the commission on mandate issues and parliamentary ethics Gennady Raikov, as well as the deputy of the Rodina faction, former Deputy Minister of Education Boris Vinogradov. It was they who initiated the consideration of the bill. The bill determines that the powers of a member of the Federation Council and a State Duma deputy are terminated early if he loses citizenship of the Russian Federation, as well as if he acquires citizenship other than Russian.
All parliamentary factions, as well as independent deputies, declared their support for the bill. And independent deputy Sergei Popov said that in the future it would be nice to extend the effect of this bill to representatives of the executive branch. He was supported by Anatoly Greshnevikov, who spoke from the LDPR faction. The coordinator of the Rodina faction, Ivan Kharchenko, proposed going further and extending the bill not only to representatives of the executive branch, but also to members of the Public Chamber and a number of other structures: “Maybe we should extend it to family members, because it’s clear: what does the husband know? , then the wife knows too.” And Nikolai Kondratenko, a representative of the Communist Party faction, known for his specific views, said that the communists will support this bill because there are “few Russians” in the legislative and executive bodies.
As explained by deputy Andrei Klimov from United Russia, who presented the bill, it is expected that it will come into force 30 days after its adoption as a whole and publication. As for State Duma deputies, the law is proposed to be put into effect for them in December 2006. Therefore, Mr. Klimov explained, those parliamentarians who have dual citizenship will have time to make a decision - either to renounce their second citizenship or to surrender their mandate. Let us recall that the law “On the status of a member of the Federation Council and the status of a State Duma deputy” prohibits parliamentarians from acquiring a second citizenship, but so far there has been no ban on electing such people; the candidate only had to inform the election commission about the second citizenship.
The day before, First Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Oleg Morozov said that the specialized committee on constitutional legislation and state building supported the adoption of this bill. At the same time, Mr. Morozov admitted that he has no official information about how many State Duma deputies have dual citizenship. True, he did not rule out the possibility of the new law influencing the next election campaign: “This is not about looking out for people with dual citizenship. The point is that these measures are enshrined in law, and they will be in effect from the next election campaign.”