But there was one

A special opinion of the Constitutional Court judge Vladimir Yaroslavtsev on amendments to the law on meetings, rallies, demonstrations, processions and picketing and to the Code of Administrative Offenses has been published. In his opinion, which does not coincide with the official position of the court, the “rapid” adoption of “arbitrary and unsystematic amendments” should have been recognized as inconsistent with the Constitution and thereby provided grounds for their cancellation. Judge Yaroslavtsev sees a violation of the Constitution in the fact that the Duma, contrary to the regulations, did not send the bill to regional authorities so that they could make their proposals and comments within 30 days.

The Constitutional Court previously agreed that the amendments to the law were adopted by the Duma in violation of the regulations, but did not find sufficient grounds for their repeal. According to Yaroslavtsev, writes Kommersant, without the Duma observing the “established rules of legislative activity” it is impossible to “reliably establish whether the decision taken reflects the actual will of the legislator.” According to him, this is the same position of the European Court of Human Rights.

“Federalism is impossible without active direct participation in the lawmaking of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation,” Yaroslavtsev said. If the participation of entities “proves to be too small,” this could “call into question the federal character of the state.”

Yaroslavtsev’s colleagues at the Constitutional Court considered that since the regional authorities did not challenge the amendments, then we can assume that their opinion does not diverge from the position of the federal center.

In addition, the rebel judge noted violations of the requirements regarding the procedure for adopting laws in various readings. In the first reading, three amendments were supposed to be made to the Administrative Code, but when the Duma considered the bill in the second and third readings, there were already about twenty changes to both the Administrative Code and the law on rallies. “An analysis of the amendments shows that between the first and second readings there was not only a renaming of the bill, but also a change in concept, an expansion of the range of regulated relations,” Yaroslavtsev said. Thus, in his opinion, there was a “significant change in the scope of the constitutional right of citizens to freedom of assembly” and a “distortion of the original expression of will.” All this, according to the judge of the Constitutional Court, indicates the unconstitutionality of the bill.

Yaroslavtsev called the situation he described with the adoption of the amendments “a sacrifice of the constitutional right of citizens to freedom of assembly on the sacrificial altar of the State Duma in favor of momentary desires for the “speedy” adoption of the law.”