Translated material
Legal fundamentalists
The most obedient Duma in Russian history has finished its work
Last Friday,the country said goodbye to the Duma of the fourth convocation . The last plenary session was short. Deputies adopted a number of bills, after which the State Duma Speaker, head of the United Russia faction Boris Gryzlov summed up the results of legislative work over four years. After that, he explained to journalists the meaning of his catchphrase “Parliament is not a place for discussion.” “When I said at the beginning of the convocation that we need to pay less attention to battles, I meant that we should pass a large number of laws,” Mr. Gryzlov said.This phrase became a kind of calling card of the convocation. The constitutional majority of United Russia did not leave any chance for other factions to pass their bills. In addition, the party in power occupied key positions in all Duma committees without exception.
Talking about the results of the convocation, Boris Gryzlov noted that over four years the State Duma considered 2,712 bills, 1,062 federal laws were adopted, and 25 constitutional laws were approved. “We worked on the formation of legislation for the new Russia,” the speaker noted. In many cases, he said, it was not about amendments, but about “the development of fundamentally new laws, about eliminating gaps in those areas where the legal framework was hopelessly outdated or simply absent.”
“We created the foundation of the Russian legal system of the 21st century,” explained Mr. Gryzlov. He noted that the current convocation of the State Duma was different from the previous ones, since for the first time in the lower house of parliament a majority was formed on the basis of one party. “Based on the messages to the Federal Assembly, we have enshrined in laws the course of our national leader (as the party in power now customarily calls President Putin . - Ed. ). This is a course towards the revival of Russia as a great power, in which people’s lives are prosperous and which is rightfully one of the centers of the multipolar world,” the speaker said. He also expressed the belief that the emergence of a majority in parliament based on one party has significantly increased the role of parliament in the life of the country. Although all public opinion polls showed the opposite.
At the beginning of the convocation, many predicted that the Fourth Duma would be boring and routine. However, the parliamentary factions could not avoid scandals, splits, or even fights. Suffice it to say that the Duma reached the finish line with a slightly different composition than at the start. There was a split in the Rodina faction - Sergei Baburin withdrew members of his party Narodnaya Volya from it. The remaining Rodina faction was renamed A Just Russia. And Mr. Baburin was replaced in the place of the leader of the breakaway faction by Gennady Semigin, and the leader of the “Narodnaya Volya” met the end of the convocation as a simple independent deputy.
But the country never saw a split in United Russia. Instead, the party in power grew wings - right and left, which later transformed into three platforms - liberal, social and conservative. It is assumed that platforms should discuss among themselves and develop consensus in the spirit of the ideology of centrism.
One of the main Duma scandals was the adoption of the notorious 122nd law on the monetization of benefits, which came into force on January 1, 2005. After a wave of protests took place across the country, legislators had to urgently figure out how to make the law less “draconian.” Deputies of the Rodina faction, which at that time was headed by Dmitry Rogozin, reacted to the situation in a unique way. Under his leadership, several Rodin residents went on a hunger strike. They starved for a week in Mr. Rogozin's office.
After this, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and Rodina initiated consideration of the issue of no confidence in the government. The report on the vote was made by independent deputy Oksana Dmitrieva, who enriched the collection of aphorisms of modern Russian politics with the phrase “The government is not horses that cannot be changed in midstream, but a team of doctors who made a grave mistake.” However, the parliamentary majority represented by United Russia did not approve the vote.
In the spring of 2005, the only fight that occurred during the entire convocation occurred. Vice-speaker from the LDPR faction Vladimir Zhirinovsky got into a fight with Rodina deputy Andrei Savelyev, for which he was deprived of the right to vote for a month.
However, as Boris Gryzlov rightly noted, legislative activity still prevailed in the Fourth Duma. Many adopted legislative acts can be called landmark, such as the abolition of direct gubernatorial elections on the initiative of the president. Or a reform of electoral legislation aimed at consolidating parties. We can also recall the amendments to the law “On Referendum”, which make holding a plebiscite almost impossible.
Representatives of the Duma minority also gave their assessments of the work of the convocation. “Key codes have been adopted - Housing, Water, helping to sell the country wholesale and retail. The most evil laws are “autocitizen”, monetization, about autonomous institutions that, in fact, robbed citizens and guarantee paid education for children, although the Constitution states that education will be accessible, the head of the Communist Party faction Gennady Zyuganov told reporters. - There is no discussion, they vote as they order. The Duma has become an appendage of the presidential administration and government of the Russian Federation. It does not fulfill its function as a parliament.”
The head of the A Just Russia faction, Alexander Babakov, looks at the results of the convocation more optimistically. “Despite possible disagreement with some laws that were adopted, despite possible disagreement with the procedure for adopting laws, we must admit that our country is progressively developing, that social and economic success is evident,” said Mr. Babakov.
The leader of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, was even more optimistic, wearing a smart, bright turquoise jacket to mark the end of the Duma’s work. He urged his colleagues to change the colors in their clothes: “We are tired of black.” And he commented on his outfit like this: “I sewed it myself, bought some cheap material.” According to the leader of the LDPR, “this Duma is better than the previous one,” because “there are fewer and fewer extremists, the communists have quieted down, and we have adopted a lot of laws that approved the state, the economy, and security.” He also expressed hope that there will be no artists or football players in the State Duma of the fifth convocation.
At the end of the convocation, United Russia formally lost its constitutional majority. This was due to the fact that the chamber prematurely terminated the powers of three United Russia deputies - Vladimir Katrenko, Pyotr Shelishch and Alexander Shibalkin. Mr. Katrenko became an auditor of the Accounts Chamber, Mr. Shelishch became a member of the Public Chamber, and Mr. Shibalkin’s statement only speaks of “a transition to another job.” Thus, on the last day of the Duma’s work, the number of the United Russia faction was 297 deputies instead of the 300 required for the minimum constitutional majority.