They were given a period of time to implement the decisions of the Constitutional Court

The head of the government apparatus, Vladislav Surkov, began to carry out the instructions of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to deal with the failure of officials to comply with decisions of the Constitutional Court (CC), requiring amendments to laws and regulations. Following the meeting in the White House, executive authorities must submit all frozen bills to the government and the State Duma by April 2013. Meanwhile, the Presnensky District Court of Moscow refused to consider the complaint against Dmitry Medvedev for failure to comply with the decision of the Constitutional Court in the case of an accident on Leninsky Prospekt.

As Kommersant learned, on Saturday Vladislav Surkov held an extended meeting with the participation of three dozen officials in connection with the prime minister’s instructions to “establish order” in the implementation of decisions of the Constitutional Court (Kommersant wrote about this on November 20). Let us recall that in this way the prime minister responded to the precedent created by the Constitutional Court, which allows him to recognize as unconstitutional decisions of any government agencies that ignore the legal position of the Constitutional Court. In addition, on November 16, a complaint was filed against Dmitry Medvedev in the Presnensky District Court in connection with the failure to implement the decision of the Constitutional Court in the case of an accident on Leninsky Prospekt on amending the Criminal Procedure Code. Although the district court refused to consider the case against the prime minister, it may be continued in higher authorities.

In addition to Vladislav Surkov’s subordinates, measures to combat the “legal nihilism” of officials who outraged the prime minister were discussed by representatives of the Ministry of Justice, the secretariats of the Constitutional Court and deputy prime ministers, as well as government plenipotentiaries in the State Duma, the Federation Council and the highest courts. According to the law on the Constitutional Court, in order to implement its decisions on the need to correct an unconstitutional norm or eliminate a legal gap, the government must submit a corresponding bill to the State Duma within three months. The development of amendments is carried out by relevant federal bodies. According to Kommersant, the meeting participants supported a bill already submitted to the State Duma to extend the deadline for the execution of decisions of the Constitutional Court to six months. While it has not been adopted, federal bodies have been instructed to submit information to the Ministry of Justice on the progress of legislative work on the implementation of decisions of the Constitutional Court by December 10. And the Ministry of Justice must, by December 19, develop a schedule for the “uniform submission” of the necessary bills to the government and the State Duma in order to pay off the “debts” accumulated over ten years by April 2013.

As Mikhail Barshchevsky, the government's plenipotentiary representative in the higher courts, told Kommersant, at the meeting it was decided to pay off all debts under unfulfilled decisions of the Constitutional Court within a year (we are talking about 37 bills) and it was clearly defined who is responsible for what. At the same time, everyone, including representatives of the Constitutional Court, agreed that it is technically impossible to implement the court’s decisions within a three-month period and it should be extended.

To organize legislative work aimed at implementing the decisions of the Constitutional Court, a working group will be created in the White House apparatus. In addition, regulations will be developed on the activities of the government's plenipotentiary representative in the highest courts, and amendments will be made to the regulations of the government itself regarding the procedure for executing decisions of the Constitutional Court. In particular, the procedure for interdepartmental approval of draft laws should be simplified. If previously departments, agencies and experts sent out their feedback on each document, now it is proposed to coordinate positions in the mode of operational meetings in working groups formed for each specific situation.

As the meeting participants told Kommersant, the position of the government apparatus was that there were no “unenforceable decisions of the Constitutional Court.” This was confirmed by Constitutional Court judge Nikolai Melnikov, commenting on the ruling announced yesterday by the Constitutional Court in the case of fines for legal entities for violating customs rules. In its operative part, the Constitutional Court, for the first time in its practice, directly pointed out the failure to implement the decision made in 2010, in which the legislator was ordered to regulate the mechanism for calculating such fines, and repeated the demand to make appropriate amendments to the legislation. As Constitutional Court judge Gadis Gadzhiev explained to Kommersant, the Constitutional Court does not interfere with the legislator’s sphere of responsibility, but turns on “high beam headlights” for him, formulating legal positions that should be followed when implementing its decisions. However, according to the report of the CC Secretariat dated July 17, “in a number of cases, there is an actual substitution of prompt introduction of required changes to legislative acts by discussion of issues considered by the CC by departmental commissions.”

Anna Pushkarskaya, St. Petersburg

Vladislav Surkov took on officials