#13
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
December 11, 2001
A PERSONALIZED CONSTITUTION
The Constitution may be amended in eight years Time to change the Constitution -
to suit a new president Author: Lidiya Andrusenko
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]
CONSTITUTIONS IN RUSSIA ARE STILL WRITTEN AND REVISED TO SUIT NATIONAL LEADERS, NOT THE NATION. THE PRESENT CONSTITUTION IS ASSOCIATED WITH THE EVENTS OF OCTOBER 1993. IT IS NOW POSSIBLE, AND EVEN ESSENTIAL, TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION. A CONSITUTIONAL ASSEMBLY WILL SOON BE CONVENED.
The present Constitution was adopted in 1993 by only 30% of voters. It is known as Yeltsin's constitution; and the attitude of most Russians toward the first president is anything but unequivocal. Moreover, this Constitution is more or less associated with the events of eight years ago in Moscow, when the conflict between the Kremlin and the Russian White House, then the seat of the parliament, resulted in tragedy. Essentially, this authoritarian constitution was a reaction to the crisis of dual power.
Before 1993, Russia had a different constitution, one that reserved the key position in the system of power for the parliament. Even despite the institution of the presidency.
The parliament could adopt constitutions and amend them, order referendums, endorse prime ministers, annul presidential orders and decrees, and impeach presidents. But all major decisions were made by the president de facto, and the de jure side of the matter was of paramount importance for Yeltsin.
The new constitution offered for the nationwide vote could not be adopted by the majority because the coveted consensus was something both the regime and society lacked. Instead of documenting a concurrence of various political forces with the state structure, Yeltsin's constitution documented the triumph of one side. The status of the parliament was restricted, and the president got the powers of a "nationwide elected monarch". In theory, the parliament can impeach the president even now, but the procedure is so complicated that the president can relax and forget about it. It is also difficult to amend the Constitution itself. The procedures are complicated, and Articles 1, 2, and 9 cannot be revised by the Federal Assembly at all. A special Constitutional Assembly is needed for that.
There are many paradoxes and flaws in the present Constitution. For example, the president alone has the power to nominate the prime minister, but the candidate has to be endorsed by the Duma, on pains of disbandment. Along with that, neither the president nor Duma deputies are accountable for the prime minister's performance. The prime minister himself - the person responsible for the whole Cabinet - is unable to put together his own team. He is forced to maneuver between the Kremlin and Okhotny Ryad.
The president wields virtually limitless power in the matter of changing the structure of the corridors of power. The latter thus depends entirely on the personal whims of the president. Presidential envoys, as invented by Putin, are a vivid example. The Constitution is also vague on the principles of federal structure. As a result, the powers-that-be alternate between almost confederatism and almost unitarism every now and then.
No political force confident of its ability to come to the corridors of power through direct elections would want the present Constitution seriously amended. No Russian politician could withstand the temptation to become a super-president. On the other hand, for the past eight years we have been hearing speculations to the effect that the constitution is not a sacred cow. When Vladimir Putin was elected, everyone seemed to forget about the constitution. No matter what the president did (splitting Russia into seven federal districts, changing the principle of formation of the Federation Council, etc.), top lawyers immediately pronounced the action to be constitutional. Regional leaders and Duma deputies merely muttered discontentedly at seeing the upper house turning from a body of "true representatives of the interests of the regions" into "a voting machine" and the lower house into "a legislative appendix of the Kremlin, remote-controlled by cell phone." All the same, no one dared even consider amending the constitution.
Now that Sergei Mironov from St. Petersburg is "the third man in the state" and successor to Yegor Stroyev, amendment of the constitution is both possible and essential. The Constitutional Assembly will be convened soon, which means that "the untouchable" articles of the Constitution will be dealt with. We can hardly expect a change in the balance of powers or a legislative movement toward the presidential-parliamentary republic which is known as the most stable form of state structure. The corridors of power themselves are not yet prepared to boost their legal and political level of culture. It means that the constitutional carcass of the super-presidential republic will become even more inflexible. According to Mironov's recent statement, moves will be made to extend the president's term in office to at least five years. This means amendment of Article 81 of Chapter 4 which states that the president is elected for four years. Even if this is just a feeler to gauge public opinion, the moment for it could not have been chosen any better. The nation is at a crossroads. Some qualitative leap is needed, and that is impossible without strong presidential power.
All constitutions in Russia are still written to suit a specific leader. This tendency casts serious doubts on Russia's democratic future...
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