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#14 - JRL 2008-232 - JRL Home
Russian party says extension of presidential term approved unlawfully
Interfax

Moscow, 22 December: The Yabloko party believes that the amendments to the Russian constitution which extend the presidential term of office and that of the State Duma were adopted in breach of the law.

"The Yabloko party expresses its protest against the gross breach of the law committed by the Federation Council. The Federation Council adopted a resolution today on establishing the results of the consideration by regional parliaments of the laws on amendments to the constitution. In the process, the timeframe for the final approval of the amendments was disregarded: the result of voting in the regions was not to be reviewed until November 2009," says a special statement issued by Yabloko in Moscow on Monday (22 December) and signed by party leader Sergey Mitrokhin.

In particular, it draws attention to the fact that "Article 9 of Federal Law 33-FZ dated 04 March 1998 'On the procedure for the adoption and coming into force of amendments to the Constitution of the Russian Federation' sets the period of one year for regional parliaments to consider any law on amendments to the constitution".

"According to Article 11 of the law, the Federation Council reviews the results of voting at regional legislative assemblies at its first meeting after the end of the period given for the consideration of the amendments, i.e. after one year. Furthermore, the law does not make exceptions from this rule even if all the regional parliaments have considered the amendments early," Mitrokhin says.

The document also stresses that "regional parliaments have the opportunity to change their decisions within one year, and this is particularly important in those regions where parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place during that year".

"We believe that the chairman of the Federation Council bears personal responsibility for the violation. The breach of procedure in the adoption of the amendments puts their legitimacy, as well as the legitimacy of the new presidential and State Duma deputies' terms, into questions," the statement says.

Yabloko "urges the Russian president to challenge the resolution in the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, and will press for the revocation of the amendments to the constitution, both because it disagrees with their content and because of a serious breach of procedure".