#3
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2001
From: laurabelin@excite.com (Laura
Belin)
Subject: amending the constitution
Some of the recent articles on possible amendments to the 1993 Russian constitution contained inaccurate or misleading statements about the amendment process. In particular, NTV's report of 12 December claimed that "The constitution that has not been amended since 1993 is now on the brink of reform. Three of its articles are untouchable, and can only be amended through a constitutional assembly, the other articles introducing changes to the existing bodies of power can be amended by a simple majority vote."
I don't know whether the problem is with NTV or with the translation by BBC monitoring, but a few points should be clarified:
The Russian constitution has nine chapters and 137 articles. When NTV says that three "articles" can only be changed by convening a constitutional assembly, they are really talking about three chapters: chapter 1 (which contains articles 1 through 16, covering Russia's basic constitutional structure), chapter 2 (containing articles 17 through 64, about citizens' basic rights and freedoms) and chapter 9 (articles 134 through 137, dealing with the process for amending and reviewing the constitution).
Article 135 states that chapters 1, 2 and 9 cannot be amended by the parliament (Federal Assembly), and can be changed only by calling a constitutional assembly. It also says that such an assembly can be called by a two-thirds vote in both the State Duma and Federation Council. A constitutional assembly can approve amendments by a vote of two-thirds, but before the amendment is finally adopted it must be approved in a nationwide referendum (supported by a majority of voters, provided that turnout exceeds half of all voters).
It is not correct to say that other articles of the constitution can be amended by simple majority vote. Article 136 says that a federal constitutional law should be adopted to govern the amendment procedure for articles in chapters 3 through 8 of the constitution. Article 136 does not specify what kind of majority vote would be required in the State Duma and Federation Council, but it makes clear that before an amendment can go into effect, it must be approved by the legislatures of at least two-thirds of all Russian Federation subjects.
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