Ethics game

The City Parliament approved the creation of a commission on parliamentary ethics, which is designed to resolve conflicts between elected representatives and “other persons.”

In fact, United Russia has established a repressive body that will fight unwanted deputies and journalists. Since there are almost no objectionable deputies in the convocation, it will most likely be the press representatives who get the nuts. Speaker Vyacheslav Makarov outplayed everyone.

Let us recall that in early October, the deputy head of the Legislative Assembly, Anatoly Drozdov, insulted a Novaya Gazeta journalist. She responded by calling him “Deputy Comb,” a reference to a 2011 video in which the politician tried to push a stuck stack of ballots into a ballot box with a comb. Despite the position of the federal leadership of United Russia, he never apologized.

Four deputies from United Russia - Vyacheslav Makarov, Sergei Solovyov, Anatoly Drozdov and Denis Chetyrbok - submitted a resolution to the Legislative Assembly for consideration on the creation of a commission on issues of parliamentary ethics. Let us note that immediately after the scandal, standing up for the Novaya correspondent, the Commissioner for Human Rights in St. Petersburg, Alexander Shishlov, addressed the leadership of the city parliament with a proposal to create a similar body.

The commission will include five deputies, the head of the legal department of the Legislative Assembly and the head of the press service. The basis for the proceedings, as follows from the document, will be “violation of generally accepted rules of interaction with deputies and other persons, damaging the honor and dignity of deputies and other persons” (what these generally accepted rules are is not specified), and “violation of collective customs and norms of individual behavior" (again, it is unclear what collective customs we are talking about), as well as other circumstances "related to the violation of the rules of parliamentary ethics."

Meetings of the commission will be closed; their participants are prohibited from disclosing information about the inspection carried out and the content of the discussion. As follows from the resolution, if a deputy is found guilty of violating ethics, he may be deprived of the right to speak at one or more meetings.

45 deputies voted for the creation of an ethics commission, one was against and one abstained. Two weeks have been allotted for the preparation of amendments.

On the sidelines of the Mariinsky Palace they say that Vyacheslav Makarov initially came up with a multi-step: he allegedly persuaded Ombudsman Shishlov to approach him with a proposal to create a commission, to which the speaker would react beautifully and respect the worried public. Shishlov himself, in a conversation with Novaya, categorically denied these rumors, accusing those spreading the rumors of lying.

The commission should include five deputies. Considering that there are now six factions in the Legislative Assembly, a representative of one does not get there. “It’s not hard to guess which one,” grins apple owner Mikhail Amosov. Firstly, the selection criteria are not specified, the quotas are not specified - one person per faction or preference will be given to United Russia members. “There are no mechanisms that would protect the minority,” Novaya’s interlocutor is indignant.

Secondly, why should incidents be reviewed behind closed doors? After all, we are not talking about a quarrel between girlfriends who did not share a boyfriend; the conflict may be of public interest. It turns out that the members of the commission will gather themselves, scold them themselves and punish them themselves. That is, complete self-service. Considering the unanimity that reigns in the parliament of the new convocation, one can imagine how this behind-the-scenes “scolding” will take place.

Thirdly, what should be understood by the phrase “may be deprived of the right to speak at one or more meetings of the Legislative Assembly”? How many meetings can a deputy be deprived of the right to speak - 20 at once? It turns out that in this way it is easy to silence the opposition for several months. And all this time, no alternative point of view will be heard within the walls of parliament. What then is the meaning of a representative body of government?

Fourthly, the presence in the document of “other persons” who may harm the honor and dignity of deputies is again confusing. Considering that, in addition to the staff of the apparatus and the people's representatives themselves, only journalists and members of the government of St. Petersburg can enter the Mariinsky Palace, then “other persons” should probably be understood as them. But it is unlikely that deputies will dare to build officials, but correspondents will easily do so.

Where are the guarantees that representatives of the press who ask uncomfortable, sensitive questions that, according to the logic of United Russia, damage the dignity of parliamentarians, will not be subject to obstruction? And what sanctions can be applied against them? The document says nothing about this.

Fifthly, the resolution does not contain a definition of “deputy ethics” itself. And given that ethics and morality are categories not from the sphere of law, then anything can be intertwined with ethics. For example, criticism of speaker Vyacheslav Makarov.

The head of the Yabloko faction in the Legislative Assembly, Boris Vishnevsky, believes that this commission could only make sense if members of all factions were represented in it, it was headed by the opposition, and the meetings were open. “But none of this will happen,” he added.

The head of the “A Just Russia” faction, Alexei Kovalev, said that conflict situations can be resolved in court (the experience of the head of EKOM, Alexander Karpov, who successfully sued the deputy Vitaly Milonov, is evidence of this), and as for the commission, the resolution introduced by United Russia does not spell out procedural norms, the right to defense and publicity.

Kovalev promised that if he is silenced, he will go to court, since “not a single federal law says that the rights of deputies can be limited based on the decision of this commission.”

In his opinion, the members of the newly created commission will be corrupted by the authorities and the body will become “an instrument in the showdown between various parliamentary influence groups.” “Instead of scribbling paper, Drozdov should have simply apologized,” the Socialist-Revolutionary concluded.

It should be admitted that Vyacheslav Makarov not only emerged from a very ugly story for the Legislative Assembly without personal reputational losses, but even managed to remain a winner. And the public was formally heard, and the whip was picked up for those who were undesirable.

The editor-in-chief of Novaya Gazeta in St. Petersburg, Diana Kachalova, sent a letter to the speaker of the Legislative Assembly on October 7, in which she asked to inform: “was a review of the incident carried out in the Legislative Assembly, what conclusions did Mr. Drozdov make and how far journalists can henceforth be protected from the rudeness of people’s representatives” . The answer, extremely laconic, came only after 12 days: wait, your letter will be considered by the ethics commission. True, it is absolutely unclear what will be considered at the commission and, perhaps, it was generally unethical to ask such questions to Vyacheslav Makarov. How the editors of Novaya will find out the verdict is also unclear. After all, as already mentioned, the commission’s meetings will be closed, and their participants are prohibited from disclosing information about the inspection carried out and the content of the discussion.