Requests have been cut

The Moscow City Duma limited itself in the epistolary genre

It seems that Moscow parliamentarians have decided to limit their overly curious colleagues, who often use the special status of a parliamentary inquiry to obtain prompt and private information about the work of government bodies and business. Yesterday, at the initiative of United Russia members, the Moscow City Duma introduced amendments to the city law “On the procedure for submitting and considering deputy requests.” These amendments significantly limit the list of addressees to whom city deputies can address requests, and thereby reduce the likelihood of “commercial” use of legislators’ letterheads.

As the initiator of the amendments, Chairman of the Commission on Regulations, Rules and Procedures of the Moscow City Duma Alexander Krutov explained to Vremya Novostey, some deputies abused their right to a deputy request, which, unlike a simple request, gives priority in terms of the time frame for receiving a response. According to the law, a deputy’s request must be responded to within 15 days, whereas with a simple written request a response can take a month. “Deputies turned to this form of obtaining information too often, and sometimes it was not even in the nature of a request, which by definition is an appeal for information or a request to explain, but in the nature of a demand,” asserts Mr. Krutov.

The amendments adopted yesterday by a majority vote determined that Moscow City Duma deputies will be able to use the request only when all other means of appeal have been exhausted and do not allow them to obtain the requested information. According to Mr. Krutov, the request will not lose its efficiency, however, in some cases, recipients will have the opportunity to prolong work on the response if additional verification, collection and analysis of data is required. In addition, a list of persons to whom a deputy request can be sent has also been established. In particular, deputies can seek information from the mayor of Moscow, heads of all levels of government in the capital and local governments, and heads of territorial representative offices of federal authorities. Federal government bodies, as well as enterprises and organizations, were excluded from the circle of addressees. “I cannot say reliably that there were cases when deputies used their status not in the interests of ordinary voters, but to lobby the interests of business, but some texts of requests from past years allow us to make such assumptions,” Mr. Krutov said.

In his opinion, limiting the epistolary impulse of legislators will only increase the status of parliamentary requests, since the addressees will understand that they are receiving the last peaceful appeal. “A request is still an ultimatum, after which the ambassadors are recalled and war begins,” he explained to Vremya Novostei.

However, the remaining minority opponents of this initiative from the Yabloko-United Democrats and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation factions believe that United Russia is simply “abolishing the request, turning it into a farce.” “A request is a tough thing,” deputy Sergei Mitrokhin told Vremya Novostey. - This is a direct instrument of pressure, control over the actions of executive authorities. And the United Russia deputies deprived Muscovites of the right to use this lever, in particular in relation to state unitary monopoly enterprises, such as Mosvodokanal.

Unlike Alexander Krutov, who claims that in 13 years of work he has not sent a single request, Mr. Mitrokhin actively uses parliamentary tools and sends, according to him, 10-15 requests a week. And he believes that this epistolary “heritage” can also be used to judge the “performance” of a parliamentarian. In total, in November alone, according to the Commission on Regulations, Rules and Procedures, the City Duma sent out 280 deputy requests. United Russia, according to Sergei Mitrokhin, are “following the lead of officials, whose increased interest in their activities causes a negative reaction, and prefer to resolve issues with the executive branch behind the scenes by telephone.” “The results of such negotiations, unlike the results of a request, cannot be published,” he explained to Vremya Novostey.

Yulia KHOMCHENKO