Russian law » Constitutional law

Members’ of the parliament discipline

Evgeny — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 11:43:20 +0000

The State Duma (Russian parliament) is world wide notorious for fights between members of the parliament and also for the way plenary meetings of the State Duma are held. It is almost a rule that only 20-40%% of the total membership present during voting even if a very important bill is being considered. If this issue is interesting, you can find an episode on the BBC web site about voting on the bill about alcohol limits in blood during driving (It had name like “Voting: Russian style!” or it was just a journalist’s exclamation – I don’t remember right now). This episode was broadcasted last spring.

But now our legislative authorities have decided to end this practice (maybe it is because Dmitry Medvedev mentioned in his speech the bad participation of the members of the parliament in voting). Because of this and for a control there will be installed a special registration system which will recognize parliament members’ faces via eight video cameras installed near the four main entrances/exits into the State Duma’s building.

Let’s see how it would work…

The Constitution Day

Evgeny — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:49:31 +0000

The Constitution of the Russian Federation is the supreme law of Russia. It is the source of the legal authority of the government and the foundation of the whole Russian legal system.

This power of the Constitution bases on the people’s will and power. They adopted this document on the referendum which took place on December 12, 1993. That is why we have today a celebration and a reason to discuss this issue.

I’ll try to explain the most of the Constitution basic provisions in the nearest future, but this post is devoted to the people who adopted the Constitution and their attitude to it. Yesterday The Moscow Times published the results of a survey which shows that:

- the share of Russians who believe that the Constitution is relevant and respected has doubled over the past seven years;

- 47 percent of them said the Constitution should be amended only in extremely rare circumstances;

- but only 16 percent of respondents said that they had read the Constitution and knew its contents.

Of course, the last figure is a shame for Russians!

Tatar as the second official language

Evgeny — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 06:05:30 +0000

Russian newsagents reported that the Tatar commodities have offered to establish Tatar language as the second official (state) language of the Russian Federation. They motivate their initiative by results of the last national census, when about 4% of population said that they considered themselves as the Tatars.
This initiative to become the reality has to be approved by the Federal Assembly (the parliament of the Russian Federation). It has to pass a new federal law on this issue and then this law has to be signed by the President.
As for me I think that reality of Tatar language, as the second official language of the Russian Federation is questionable.

Note: Now only Russian language is the official language of Russia. But subjects of the Russian Federation can have their own additional official languages. For instance Tatar language is one of the official languages of the Republic of Tatarstan (Tatarstan).