Chapter 2. Parliamentary Portraits in the Interiorof Russian Electoral Legislation

By 2021, seven full parliamentary cycles had passed since the adoption and entry into force of the current Russian Constitution. Looking back at the parliamentary processes a quarter of a century later, one can distinguish several conventional portraits and completely different characters of the Russian parliament, and each of these portraits and characters was largely determined by the state of the electoral legislation.

Following the main directions of this transformation in Russia, the entire post-Soviet period can be divided into two parts: 1993–2002 and 2002–present. These two parts are quite obviously divergent, since the goals and objectives of the authorities in these years were clearly divergent. April 2002 can be considered the starting point in such a division of history, when one of the factions of the State Duma violated the so-called “package agreement” on leading positions in the chamber and when representatives of one party received a majority of votes in the Duma Council. Since that moment, the “face” of the parliament has changed dramatically, and at the same time, the trajectory of reforming the electoral legislation that had been preserved since the first elections after the adoption of the Constitution in 1993changed, and its active transformation began. This transformation, in turn, increasingly changed the parliamentary appearance, which by now has almost reached the state of the grotesque.

First portrait. 1993–2002

In 1993, Russia introduced a new, completely unusual electoral system, in comparison with the old Soviet single-mandate, majority system of an absolute majority, a parallel mixed-member electoral system, combining the majority system of a relative majority and a proportional one with closed lists. And although in the first six years the basic electoral laws underwent several revisions and were subjected to numerous clarifications, it was not so much about changing its content as about adapting to realities. Despite the explosive public interest in the powerful arsenal of electoral techniques accumulated by world practice, until 2002 elections in Russia were quite competitive, free and more or less fair.

The portrait of the parliament formed as a result of such elections was quite consistent with the electoral situation. The first two and a half convocations of the State Duma were very active and productive, and the activities of the chamber aroused the keen interest of voters. It was an argumentative coalition parliament, in which none of the factions had a majority and therefore there was always a tough debate. But at the same time, the deputies knew how to reach an agreement. We gave a fairly detailed characterization of this parliament when describing the parliamentary coup d’état.1 With an extremely small number of deputies outside the factions (about 2–3%), it was rather difficult to determine the exact alignment of forces “from left to right,” since the the formation of blocs of deputy groups on various issues on the agenda was situational. Most of the issues on the agenda caused a lively discussion, which resulted in the formation of short-term blocs between various parliamentary factions. The Duma worked in a mode of constructive interaction with the Federation Council, which during the transition period was also elected, active and fully fulfilled its mission of checking laws for compliance with the interests of the subjects of the federation.

The Duma of the 1st convocation (1993–1995) had a difficult time. The transitional parliament faced extremely complex tasks. It not only had to determine its true place in the system of separation of powers and interaction with the president, who was taken out of this system by the Constitution. The split-up of the USSR, the formation of the Russian Federation as an independent state, and the adoption of a new Constitution required changes in the entire basic state legal framework. Therefore, the parliament had to adopt a number of complex transitional laws in the shortest possible time (in less than two years), without which the further functioning of state power in Russia would have been impossible.

The Duma of the 1st convocation was remembered for its permanent conflict with the President. On several occasions it raised the issue of no confidence in the government; the Communist Party faction attempted to organize the impeachment of Boris Yeltsin and adopt amendments to the Constitution that gave the parliament the right to approve power ministers and make decisions of no confidence in individual members of the government.

Among the high-profile decisions of the parliament of the 1st convocation are the amnesty of the participants in the “putsch” of August 1991 and the defenders of the Supreme Soviet of 1993, as well as the vote of no confidence in the government in July 1995.

During two years, the deputies adopted 461 laws, 310 of which came into force. Among them are all electoral laws, the laws “On Arbitration Courts” and “On the Constitutional Court,” “On the Referendum,” the first part of the Civil Code, as well as the Family and Arbitration Procedure Codes. In general, this is an almost unrealistic amount of work for the parliament, which was just formulating and mastering in practice its internal rules, including the basics of the new law-making process. And in two years of work, it also had to adopt the budget three times: for 1994, 1995 and 1996. And the Duma coped with this difficult task, despite factional differences.

The Duma of the Second Convocation (1996–1999). In this convocation, the left opposition represented by communists and agrarians, including single-mandate members, controlled almost 50% of the votes and interfered with the initiatives of the Kremlin and the government with all its might. The deputies tried to restart the procedure for impeaching Boris Yeltsin, but were defeated.

Relations between the Duma and the president escalated during the voting on the candidacy of the head of government—the deputies several times disrupted this voting and rejected the candidacies of Viktor Chernomyrdin and Sergei Kiriyenko proposed by the head of state. The situation was acute in the spring and autumn of 1998, when the Duma, after a third vote, and even then only under the threat of dissolution and early elections, approved Kiriyenko as head of government. As a result, due to a number of government crises, the deputies of the second convocation voted ten times for the candidacy of the head of government: in the summer of 1996, three times in April 1998, three times in September-August 1998, and in May and August 1999.

Despite the tough confrontation with the president and the executive branch, the Duma managed to develop and adopt the most complex laws based on new constitutional principles and values: the Criminal Code, the Penal Code, the Budget Code, the first part of the Tax Code, the second part of the Civil Code, the Forest Code, the Air Code, Urban Planning codes, as well as the Merchant Shipping Code. For the uninformed, we explain that codes are the pinnacle of lawmaking, the most time-consuming and painstaking rule-making work in which a large document is laid out in a single logical system, and includes both general and special norms and unifies a huge number of definitions. Taking into account that the 1993 Constitution established goals, tasks and principles of legal regulation radically different from the Soviet tradition, such work was especially difficult. Yes, of course, parts of the old codes “moved” to the new ones. Purification does not happen all at once. But in general, it was completely different and very modern legislation, developed and achieved through effort by scientists and practitioners. This is especially true of civil legislation, which was prevented from developing in Soviet times by the absence of the right to private property and freedom of entrepreneurship in the constitutions. In fact, after a 70-year break in private law, everything was built and restored anew, since the centuries-old experience and knowledge in this area were not lost.

True, at the very end of their term, after several unsuccessful attempts, in November 1999, the Communists managed to vote the Federal Constitutional Law “On the State Anthem of Russia,” replacing Mikhail Glinka’s “Patriotic Song” approved by President Yeltsin’s decree with the melody of the Soviet composer Alexander Alexandrov.

In total, during the work of the II convocation, almost 1,100 federal laws were adopted, of which almost 750 came into force.

The Duma of the III Convocation (1999–2003). This is the last convocation when, at least during the first half of their term of office, all the political forces represented in the Duma were forced to reckon with the opinion of their opponents and look for allies to make decisions, because none of the factions had a majority.

Formally, the 1999 elections were won by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, but immediately after it, the Unity bloc followed close behind. In 2001, the Unity movement absorbed the Fatherland-All Russia (Russ. abbrev. OVR) party and in December 2001 reorganized into the United Russia party. As a result, a new coalition of the majority was formed in the Duma, consisting of the Unity faction, the OVR, and the Regions of Russia and the People’s Deputy parliamentary groups.

At the end of March 2002, a closed meeting was held in the Duma to revise the two-year-old package agreement, on the basis of which, in January 2000, the seats of the speaker, vice-speakers and chairmen of 28 committees were distributed in the chamber. The “conspirators” included almost three fourths of the Duma. Only the communists, their friends the agrarians, and the Liberal Democratic Party were not invited to the meeting. According to the distribution of mandates in 2000, the communists, together with the agrarians, had 12 leading positions in the Duma—speaker, vice speaker, nine committee chairmen and head of staff. The new majority decided that when the alignment changed, the number of these posts was reduced to five. Zyuganov said that in such a situation, all communists and agrarians would submit an application for resignation from leadership positions. However, three (the speaker and two committee chairs) refused to leave their posts.

As a result, on April 2, the Duma (four centrists, SPS, and Yabloko) decided that the communists would be left with only the two most “irrelevant” committees: on public organizations and religious associations, and on culture and tourism. And although the Communist Party of the Russian Federation could claim five positions in terms of the number of mandates, the Duma majority considered that the three leading posts—speaker, vice speaker and head of staff—could be considered as three committees.

Communist Gennady Seleznev remained as speaker of the State Duma, but the Communist Party faction paid a very high price for this. At the end of everything, a plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation took place, at which the communists summed up the results of the April redistribution of the package agreement in the Duma. Gennady Seleznev and two chairmen of the committees—Svetlana Goryacheva and Nikolai Gubenko—were expelled from the party by the plenum “for violating the charter,” consisting in the refusals to leave their Duma posts. So the communists not only lost the leading committees, and primarily the committee on state building and constitutional legislation, but also got rid of three very valuable members of the party at once, which undoubtedly dealt a serious blow to its influence in the State Duma and in power as a whole.

A few months after the violation of the package agreement, in June 2002, a new Law “On Basic Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in a Referendum of Citizens of the Russian Federation” was adopted.2 This enactment launched a long-term permanent process of anti-democratic transformation of the electoral legislation. As a result, over the past 15 years, 2,630 amendments have been made to the electoral laws, which together predetermined a number of negative consequences for the Russian parliament, turning it into a pseudo-representative assembly that is rapidly losing its significance and authority. In total, 805 laws were adopted during the period of the chamber’s work, of which more than 700 were signed by the president.

Second portrait. 2002—present

Despite the fact that the five subsequent convocations of the Duma were elected according to different electoral systems (the 4th convocation by a mixed system, the 5^th and 6^th by a proportional system, and the 7^th and 8^thagain by a mixed system), the general conditional portrait of the Russian parliament was and remains the same. And this is natural, since it was precisely this image of the parliament that was conceived in President Putin’s general model of power. It was to this future image that all the electoral and party reforms of the first years of the 21st century were adapted.

Such a modern Russian parliamentary portrait has very specific features:

• non-discussion provided by a specially formed dependent parliamentary majority;

• non-execution of control and representative functions;

• distortion of reasonable parliamentary procedures;

• a sharp increase in the number of adopted laws;

• declining quality of legal texts;

• decrease in independence and increase in dependence on the executive branch;

• a decrease in ratings and, as a result, an increase in legal nihilism in society.

E. M. Shulman draws the portrait of the modern Russian parliament as follows:

Discussing the prospects for the development of parliamentarism in the absence of a party system, competitive elections and control over the government is reminiscent of the search for an answer to the children’s quiz question “What animal can live without a head?..” This is not exactly a parliament, because the soul of parliamentarism is political competition for the sake of representing public interests. It is rather an “administrative exchange,” a trading platform for power groups and actors, but more public due to its constitutional nature than any other departments or law enforcement agencies.3

The clear features of the new parliamentary “face” appeared almost immediately. In the Duma of the 4th convocation, the party in power, represented by United Russia, not only won the majority of votes on party lists, but also received a constitutional majority thanks to the number of single-mandate deputies—more than 300 out of 450 deputy mandates. This gave the Kremlin the opportunity to easily pass any laws through the State Duma, including constitutional laws, which require two thirds of the votes of deputies, and adopt amendments to the Constitution. All leading positions were occupied by representatives of the party in power. Parliament ceased to be a “place for discussion.”

Here is another consolidated qualified assessment, a short and precise description characterizing the work of three convocations (from the 4^th to the 6th) of the Russian parliament, again from Ekaterina Shulman:

The Fourth convocation was the last elected under a mixed scheme—225 party lists for 225 single-mandate members, and the first convocation of a party majority. It passed laws that would abolish gubernatorial elections, tighten the party system, and restrict the electoral rights of citizens in general, and learned to be not a place for discussion. The Fifth Convocation realized this ideal, showing a picture of perfect discipline and almost perfect silence. Its actions are unknown, its deeds obscure. It tried to legislatively serve “Medvedev’s modernization” and at the same time vaguely oppose the government from the positions of a generalized leftism, extended the term of office of the Duma to five years and that of the president to six years. Its chairman was almost always silent. The Sixth convocation first put together a high legislative gallows in two years—a framework for new repressive legislation for election participants, parties, NGOs, orphans, protesters, believers, the media, social media users, and even for the deputies themselves, who could be deprived of their mandate by a simple decision of the chamber for vague sins. With great reluctance, it adopted a law on returning to a mixed electoral system, changed the Constitution not on its own initiative, adding two new subjects of the Federation to Russia, and by the end of its work supplemented the repressive legislative vector with a confiscatory one—not only new terms, but also new fines, fees, higher excises and the transformation of everything that was free into something paid, and what was paid into something expensive.4

By the middle of the work of the State Duma of the 6^thconvocation, on the eve of the 2016 elections, the country’s leadership finally drew attention to the catastrophic ratings of the parliament, damaging the entire system of power. Partly for this reason (in fact, due to a sharp drop in the ratings of the party in power and the threat of not getting a majority in the proportional system), on the eve of the elections on September 18, 2016, it was repeatedly suggested that a change in the rules for its election (return to a mixed majority-proportional system) would affect qualitative composition of the deputy corps. For example, according to A.E. Lyubarev, “the return to a mixed system should be assessed positively: non-party candidates (as well as party members who, for one reason or another, were not nominated by parties) get the right to run as self-nominated candidates; voters get the opportunity to vote for specific candidates; the influence of the party bureaucracy on the deputy corps is reduced.” However, these expectations were not met.

An analysis of the activities of the 6th and 7th convocations of the Duma may deserve special attention. Because, firstly, these convocations coincided with the period of maximum concentration of authoritarianism. Secondly, because the Crimean events and the maximum number of the most unpopular and repressive laws fell to their lot. And thirdly, it was in these convocations that the collective portrait of the Russian parliament of the second type became especially distinct and drawn in detail.

Duma of the 6th Convocation (2011–2016). Only seven parties took part in the elections to this Duma. There were no other parties in the country officially registered and therefore entitled to participate in elections. Four of them passed: United Russia received 238 mandates, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation—92, Just Russia—64 mandates and the LDPR—56 mandates. This time, the practice of “refuseniks-locomotives” actively showed itself. After summing up the results of the elections, many elected candidates refused deputy mandates. Ninety-nine people decided to transfer their seat in the Duma to the next one on the list. United Russia had the most “refuseniks.” For example, the acting governor of the Tomsk region, Viktor Kress, the chairman of the government of the Republic of Khakassia, Viktor Zimin, and the governor of the Sverdlovsk region, Alexander Misharin, refused mandates.

In the Duma elected according to the proportional system, United Russia noticeably worsened its performance: 49.3% voted for it. Although the party in power received a majority, this time it was unconstitutional. In addition, after the elections there were mass protests against the falsification of the voting results.

Naturally, after that, the deputies simplified the registration of parties, returned the system of elections in single-seat districts, and introduced direct elections of governors. The date of the elections to the State Duma was postponed to mid-September in order to make the election campaign as difficult as possible for alternative deputies (collection of signatures in seasonally empty cities, for example) and so that voters during the summer holidays and autumn harvest would not delve into the details of the election battles too much.

It was at this convocation that the decision was made on the admission of the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol to the Russian Federation. It was in this convocation that the deputies adopted a number of high-profile laws that introduced new bans: on the adoption of Russian orphans by US citizens (Dima Yakovlev’s Law), on the promotion of homosexuality, on smoking in public places, liability was introduced for insulting the feelings of believers, and an “anti-piracy law” was adopted, which caused the discontent of large internet companies. Responsibility for holding unauthorized rallies and marches was also tightened, and amendments to the law on non-profit organizations were adopted, which greatly complicated the work of NGOs, especially those receiving grants from abroad.

“The Crazy Printer”—it was in this convocation that the Duma received this popular nickname, when the number of laws issued by parliament in an emergency manner began to break all records. The nickname denoted not only the outstanding speed with which laws were adopted, but first of all, the fact that laws appeared not on the initiative of the parliamentarians themselves, but on orders from “above.” It was not only their quantity that caused criticism, but also their dubious quality. The effect was strengthened by the “slip of the tongue” of journalist Vladimir Pozner broadcasting on Channel One, who called the State Duma a “state fool,” which became a household word.5

In total, 6,012 bills were submitted to the lower house of parliament during the convocation. In the first, second or third readings, the deputies managed to consider 4,107 legislative initiatives and adopt 1,817 laws, of which the president signed 1,812. Previously, the 4^thconvocation was the record holder in the number of bills submitted—4,808 documents, and in the number of adopted laws—the 5^th, with 1,608. Twenty-one rejected or returned bills were submitted to the State Duma by the President or the Federation Council. For comparison: in the 2^ndand 3^rdconvocations of the State Duma, 441 and 102 documents were rejected or returned, respectively. The activity of some subjects of the right of legislative initiative greatly increased, primarily the government, which introduced 1,259 bills against 699 in the 5th convocation.

The average number of bills that the Duma considered at one meeting exceeded 18 bills (up to 50 legislative initiatives were considered at some meetings). The discussion of bills often took a matter of minutes. The productivity of deputy labor, measured by the number of laws considered per unit of time, has tripled over the past 15 years. But with the quality of this work, everything is a little more modest. If in the early 2000s the number of adopted laws was 40% of the bills under consideration, now only 15% of legislative initiatives reached the finish line.

As in previous convocations, deputies sometimes liked to have fun. For example, the current governor of the Khabarovsk Territory, Mikhail Degtyarev, when he was a member of the LDPR faction, introduced bills “On protecting citizens from the consequences of garlic consumption”6 and on repainting the Kremlin white. In the first case, “in order to prevent the impact of the pervasive garlic smell on human health,” it was proposed to ban the consumption of garlic in the territories and premises intended for the provision of educational services, on long-distance trains and in workplaces and not to sell garlic to “pregnant women, nursing mothers, and workers of art and culture, whose official duties include working with the population, andto public servants.” The proposal to repaint the Kremlin was justified by the fact that “the image of the white stone Kremlin, as in ancient times, will symbolize the priority of ethicsand morality in the daily life of our citizens and rulers, as opposed to moral decline in the countries of Western civilization.”

Another delightful legislative initiative is “On Restrictions on the Circulation and Storage of US Dollars on the Territory of the Russian Federation,” justified by the fact that the proposed measures “will be an effective step to protect the interests of Russian citizens and organizations from the negative impact of the collapsing American debt pyramid.” Not surprisingly, the state of health of the legislature began to cause serious concern among citizens.7 “Ban sneakers and stilettos, change the colors of the Russian tricolor, remove the phallus of Apollo from the 100-ruble bill, fill the dying villages with Chinese, and return political information to schools”—these amazing proposals are actual legislative initiatives of deputies.8 People understood that most of the bills did not have any serious legislative goal-setting, but were self-promotion of deputies, when the goal was to introduce the most stupid bills, but at the same time, of course, providing their authors with a lot of media noise and increased mention in the media.9For reasons of self-promotion a number of deputies of the State Duma of the 6th convocation came up with all sorts of scandalous and semi-anecdotal legislative initiatives, which negatively affected the image of the parliament as a whole.10

Duma of the 7th Convocation (2016–2021). Elections to the State Duma of the 7th convocation again ended with the victory of United Russia, which regained its constitutional majority, taking more than 340 out of 450 seats. The central events of the convocation were two large-scale reforms—pension and constitutional.

In 2017, one of the very first high-profile laws launched renovation works in Moscow. Moreover, the leadership of the State Duma did not hide the fact that the initiative was worked out jointly with the mayor’s office of the capital, and in order to stop protests, Okhotny Ryad came up with a format for expanded parliamentary hearings with public participation. This innovation proved to be very effective, so such hearings began to be held later, when it was necessary to relieve tension around the government’s initiatives. The renovation, followed by protests, can be considered a rehearsal for the 2018 pension reform. At the same time, as sociologists stated, the increase in the retirement age sharply lowered the ratings of both deputies and the government as a whole. In September of the same year, representatives of United Russia lost to the opposition in the gubernatorial elections in three regions. The approval rating of the State Duma fell by almost 20%: in December 2016 it was 52.1%, and at the end of May 2021 it was already down to 34% (VTsIOM).11

On January 15, 2020, it was the deputies (together with the senators) who were the first to hear from Putin in a message to the Federal Assembly that they would have to seriously change the Constitution, and basically (except for the Communist Party) did not object to this. Moreover, it was through the mouth of the deputy Valentina Tereshkova that it was proposed, when considering a bill on an amendment to the Constitution, to abolish restrictions on the number of presidential terms. Her initiative was supported by Putin, and after him by the Russians in a specially invented all-Russian vote. This in turn became a test for many innovations, which in 2020 again changed the electoral rules of Russia in a very peculiar way, including for further use in organizing voting—for example, online elections in the regions and multi-day voting were introduced.

It was the Duma of Unfulfilled Opportunities, political scientist Alexander Kynev believes: “The composition formed in 2016 was notable—there were almost 30 former mayors, well-known public figures. But the political framework in which the State Duma acted did not allow this personal potential to manifest itself, many of these people will no longer stand for election.”

Having come to the State Duma from the post of first deputy head of the presidential administration, Volodin tried to fight for parliamentary discipline. In particular, the deputies were recommended to coordinate their legislative initiatives with the special councils in the factions. Volodin also struggled with the voting of deputies for neighbors at the tables in the plenary hall. True, this struggle turned out to be rather formal: even Volodinwas voted for during his absence in the lower house, the media wrote.

An analysis of the transcripts of all speeches in the State Duma for the convocation showed that deputies most often spoke about bans and toughening, as well as about protests and rallies. The adjective “military” in their statements was almost three times more common than “peaceful.” Such rhetoric is reflected in the adopted laws. The deputies introduced immunity for former Russian presidents, limited educational activities, passionately tightened censorship on the Internet, fought against foreign “enemies” and “protected” children, along the way passing a law decriminalizing beatings in the family. Of all the convocations, it was the work of this composition of the Duma that earned the most folk memes:

• multi-day voting;

• imprisonment for defamation on the Internet;

• the law on the “protection” of Russians from censorship of social networks;

• the law on “foreign agents” who are natural persons;

• the “spanking” law—the decriminalization of beatings;

• the standalone Internet (according to the idea of the deputies, it should ensure the reliable operation of the Russian network without dependence on Western servers);

• “undesirable organizations” (the law on “undesirable” organizations was adopted by the State Duma of the VI convocation, but it was significantly tightened in 2021. “Unwanted” are international or foreign organizations (commercial and non-commercial) that, according to the authorities, pose a danger to Russia. For example, these can be companies that hold seminars on human rights, election observation and criticism of Russian politics);12

• the veterans defamation law.

We add to this series the law on immunity of former presidents of Russia, on educational activities, and many others.

Toward the close, the deputies approved a law prohibiting persons who were involved in the activities of organizations that were later recognized as extremist from participating in elections. It was adopted despite the criticism of many lawyers who found a contradiction in Art. 54 of the Constitution (“No one can be held responsible for an act that at the time of its commission was not recognized as an offense”).

As of the end of the session, 5,531 bills were submitted to the State Duma during the convocation. In total, in the first, second or third reading, the deputies managed to consider 6,479 bills (including those introduced in previous sessions) and adopt 2,672 laws (855 more than in the previous convocation). According to the last two indicators, the convocation was a record one, that is, an average of 534 laws were adopted per year.

The President rejected two laws adopted by the State Duma of the 7th convocation. The first one, in December 2016, was about the creation of the federal and regional information systems “Contingent of Students,” widely criticized for the opacity of the principle of access to personal data of citizens. The second one, in June 2021, on expanding the responsibility of the media for the dissemination of false information. The Federation Council rejected seven laws adopted by the State Duma during five years.

The federal government, compared to the previous convocation, introduced 88 bills more—1,404 (25.4%).

The effect of the “crazy printer.”
Sharp increase in the number of laws passed

So, in 1996, the first year of the 2nd convocation (and the first full-fledged one), 832 bills were submitted to the lower chamber, 419 were considered (in the first, second or third reading), and 258 were adopted. Thus, in one plenary session then 5.99 bills were considered on average, and 3.69 were adopted. Legislators worked with approximately the same productivity in the remaining years of the 2^ndconvocation. During this four-year period, from 1996 to 1999, there were 5.43 considered and 3.42 adopted bills per average statistical meeting. At the beginning of the Putin era (the first half of the 3rd convocation), the pace of lawmaking remained about the same. Let’s say, in 2000, 990 drafts were submitted, and 423 were considered. In one sitting, almost the same number of bills were considered as five years previously—6.04. And even fewer were enacted—2.37.

But then the legislative assembly line accelerated sharply. In the 4th convocation, from 2004 to 2007, there are already 10.5 considered and 4.2 adopted laws per session of parliament. In the 5^thconvocation, from 2008 to 2011, the speed increased even more: for one “plenary” then 12.36 bills were considered, and 6.2 were adopted. But the Duma Stakhanovites have deployed in full force into the current, 8^th convocation. In 2014, a record 1,688 projects were submitted to the lower chamber. 1,234 were considered, also a record. 555 enacted—another historic achievement. The pace is thus a record one: on average, 17.63 considered and 7.93 laws were enacted per meeting.

In other words, over the past 15 years, the productivity of the legislative machine has tripled. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that in the “tumultuous 90s,” due to extremely complex relations between the branches of power, as well as between individual “branches” of the branches themselves, far from all the laws adopted by the State Duma were approved by the Federation Council and the president. For example, for the 2^ndconvocation, almost half, 42%, of the drafts approved by the lower chamber were rejected. In the 5th convocation, this share decreased to 1.19%, and in 2014 to 0.9%.

Considering that the duration of the Duma “plenary” does not, as a rule, exceed six and a half hours—from 10 am to 6 pm, with two breaks with a total duration of 1.5 hours, the discussion of one law in the Duma of the Sixth convocation, if it can even be called a discussion, takes a matter of minutes.13

The policy of the State Duma, which is usually described as “the desire to get rid of the label of a crazy printer” or as “an attempt to increase its own political weight,” was carried out in three directions. Firstly, the struggle for legislative quality and discipline: this includes both increased requirements for deputy attendance, and the rejection of the practice of adopting drafts “in the first reading and in whole”; in the second and third readings on the same day; the appearance of a new unit in the legal department designed to help young lawmakers; a new practice of public parliamentary hearings; a number of measures to restrict the freedom of the right to legislative initiative of both deputies and regional legislative assemblies (a system of filters, factional and built into the Council of Legislators). During the first year of the work of the State Duma of the 7^thconvocation, 231 drafts were submitted by regional legislative assemblies, and only three of them became laws; for comparison, during the same period of work of the previous Duma, 313 regional initiatives were submitted, and seven were approved.14

But all the measures taken did not help. According to the deputies, they often received 60–70 legislative initiatives “for familiarization” by internal mail in the evening, on the eve of the parliamentary session, and then 15–20 bills could be sent to them in the morning. With such a practice, there could be no question of any analysis of the laws, but this was not required—everything was decided by party and factional discipline.15

Having begun its activities in October 2021, the Duma of the 8^thconvocation quickly set to work, proving its commitment to the traditions of its predecessors. During the first session (from October 12 to December 22, 2021, that is, two months and ten days), along with all organizational procedures such as the formation of committees and procedural amendments, the deputies adopted 143 laws…

The Correlation of Quantity and Quality of laws

It turns out that the parliament works at the speed of a machine gun. But is this a measure of the effectiveness of its work? Is it possible to quantify the work of the legislature at all? It seems not. The plurality and instability of legal regulation are not only harmful, they are extremely dangerous for the state.

It is well known that in lawmaking one should proceed from the principle of regulating only those issues that citizens and organizations cannot solve on their own and that affect their common interests. Unjustified multiple legal regulation not only leads to a restriction of individual freedom, but also causes “inflation” of legislation, which can generally paralyze law as a social regulator. Just as the stability of legal regulation is achieved only with the maximum reasonableness and validity of the law. A hasty and superficial approach, and an inadequate reflection of reality lead to numerous amendments and corrections in the legislation. Momentary legal regulation and the practice of “patching holes” also do not improve the quality of legislation.

But such an approach is available only to a highly professional and responsible parliament. Simulacrum parliaments are not capable of independent analytical activity. They either churn out bills handed down from above in approval mode, or act impulsively, adopting laws and amendments to them ad hoc, not caring about systemic connections and the adequacy of these amendments.

In addition, a hastily adopted bill, which has not passed public examination and has not been properly discussed in parliament, as a rule, contains gaps and defects. These shortcomings will need to be filled in by regulations, and a lot of additional explanations and instructions will be adopted for those complying with them. Not to mention the fact that it will take a long and difficult time to correct the situation by correcting mistakes in the course of law enforcement practice. As a result, there is confusion in the legislation, a decrease in executive discipline, congestion and growth of departments and control bodies. Expensive, inconvenient, difficult to implement and, most importantly, extremely inefficient.

All these conclusions are to a large extent a priori applicable to many laws adopted by the Russian parliament of the second type (within the framework of the general characteristics of the second portrait of the parliament). We are forced to state that along with the change in the external and internal appearance of the parliament in Russia, the quality of laws has drastically decreased. And this is natural. Oddly enough, in fact, it was in the conditions of states with an authoritarian political regime that the modern concept of positive law was formed, which means that the signs of positive law are adapted specifically for states with an authoritarian political regime. This is largely due to historical tradition, since during the period of the emergence of positive law (in its modern sense) there were simply no alternatives to an authoritarian political regime, the differences consisted only in the belonging of the state to one or another type of authoritarianism. This can also explain the limited requirements for law, and the absence of a number of signs that could arise in the conditions of states with other political regimes.16

Hastily adopted, without due deliberation and without reasonable procedure, the laws very quickly revealed their flaws. For example, the so-called “Spanking Law” on the decriminalization of beatings, the shortcomings of which the Duma has been trying to correct for a long time and with difficulty. In order to implement the Resolution of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation on the recognition of Art. 116.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on repeated beatings as partially unconstitutional, another bill was submitted to the State Duma. Now it is proposed to punish for repeated beatings not only those who were previously punished administratively, but also those who have a criminal record for crimes committed with the use of violence. In general, this draft was originally different and included not only those convicted of crimes with the use of violence, but also tried for crimes with the threat of violence. And that was correct. In the new version, the norm, closing one gap in the law, creates another. Based on the text of the bill, a person convicted of rape or robbery with the threat of violence will not be subject to the new version of Art. 116.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, in contrast to a person who was convicted of similar crimes, but with the use of violence. And this is not the first and certainly not the last attempt by the legislator to “adjust” decriminalization. And why? Because initially decriminalization in the form in which it was made was a big and hasty legal mistake, and, alas, it is impossible to revive a corpse, even a legal one. That is, first we drive ourselves into a corner, and then we try to find a way to pull ourselves out of this corner.

A similar situation was created with many other laws adopted through the method of “machine-gun fire.” The Law on NGOs and individuals as foreign agents belongs to the sameassemblage, in which there was no mechanism for changing the status received; the law on undesirable organizations with the same flaw, which has unconstitutional retroactive effect and prohibits participation in elections by persons who were involved in the activities of organizations “subsequently recognized as extremist;” the law on educational activities, for the implementation of which the responsible ministry cannot invent any adequateregulationthat will not damage education, and many others. This list can be continued, but this is the subject of another study.

The most serious defect (sometimes it is thought that it was intentional) was the legal uncertainty of a number of legal definitions, which allows law enforcement and other state bodies to arbitrarily interpret them in accordance with political expediency or their own vision. The content of the principle of “legal certainty” has been repeatedly clarified by the European Court of Human Rights as a result of the interpretation of the provisions of paragraph 1 of Art. 6 of the Convention and by the Constitutional Court of Russia. The requirement of legal certainty forms “one of the fundamental aspects of the rule of law principle,” and is a necessary consequence and condition for implementation. Thus, in the decision in the case Marx v. Belgium of June 13, 1979, the European Court of Human Rights emphasized that the principle of legal certainty “is inherent in the law of the Convention” (para. 58). Legal certainty is necessary so that the participants in certain relations can reasonably foresee the consequences of their behavior, be confident in the stability of their officially recognized status, and of acquired rights and obligations. Conversely, “legal uncertainty” is seen as the possibility of unlimited discretion in the process of law enforcement, leading to arbitrariness, and therefore to violation of the principles of equality and the rule of law. The criteria for legal certainty are very clearly articulated in paragraphs 44–48 of the Venice Commission’s report on the rule of law. Mathematicians operate with formulas, and lawyers with definitions. Actually, the principle of legal certainty is a requirement for legal formulations.

But it seems that the Russian deputies have never heard of such a thing, and if they did, it was only out of the corner of their ear. Considering that the vast majority of bills are submitted to the Duma by other state bodies, they are also unaware that the fulfillment of the requirement of legal certainty is an obligation assumed by the Russian state. As a result, we have what we have. For example, the definition of political activity in Article 2.1 “On measures of influence on persons involved in violations of fundamental human rights and freedoms, rights and freedoms of citizens of the Russian Federation,” which allows, under certain circumstances, to recognize individuals as foreign agents.17

Here is the definition: “Political activity is recognized as activity in the field of state building, protecting the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation, the federal structure of the Russian Federation, protecting sovereignty and ensuring the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation, ensuring the rule of law, law and order, state and public security, national defense, foreign policy, socio-economic and national development of the Russian Federation, the development of the political system, the activities of state bodies, local governments, legislative regulation of the rights and freedoms of man and citizen in order to influence the development and implementation of state policy, and the formation of state bodies, local governments, and their decisions and actions.”So it turns out that when creating this book, the authors are engaged in political activities? Are scholars analyzing the activities of state bodies politicians? Are the organizations that monitor elections and publish a summary of violations also politicians? Such is the legal uncertainty.

Another example is the definition of extremist activity. On June 20, 2012, the Venice Commission published the Opinion on the Federal Law on Combating Extremist Activity of the Russian Federation // European Commission For Democracy Through Law (Venice Commission). June 20, 2012). The document was adopted at the 91st plenary meeting of the commission on June 15–16, 2012.18 The document notes that the wording of the Law “On Counteracting Extremist Activities” is too unclear and vague, especially in terms of basic concepts such as “extremism,” “extremist activity,” “extremist organization” and “extremist materials,” and gives too wide a scope for interpretation and enforcement, which leads to the arbitrariness of the authorities. As a result, the Venice Commission concludes that the arbitrary application of the law on countering extremism opens up the possibility of introducing severe restrictions on fundamental rights and freedoms enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights (in particular, Articles 6, 9, 10 and 11), and violates the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality. The Commission requires Russia to bring legislation into line with the European Convention on Human Rights, offering aid and assistance in this work. But, as we see, there are no consequences, and the law continues to be applied arbitrarily.

Reducing the independence of parliament.
Dependency of the representative body on the executive branch

In political science, there is the concept of so-called veto players, proposed by University of Michigan professor George Tsebelis, which was expanded on in his 2002 work Veto Players.19 This theory is that in the arena of the struggle for power there are always actors who can be called veto players. Veto players are actors whose voice is important in making political decisions, that is, at a certain stage they have the power to block the adoption of any political decision. Strictly speaking, the theory of veto players is a certain measure of the effectiveness of the system of separation of powers in terms of the presence of real mechanisms of checks and balances in it. From a theoretical standpoint, various political institutions were considered, in particular the Russian State Duma, which can be considered as a veto player from 1993 to 2003. Although it is worth noting that the appearance of a pro-presidential majority in the legislature was outlined as early as 2001, and in 2003 United Russia received a constitutional majority. Thus, with the help of the State Duma, the president received all the leverage for carrying out the political courses that he needed.20

Everything is correct. After 2002, the Russian deputies ceased to be an independent political force and turned de facto into officials waiting for instructions “from above.” According to experts, the majority of bills are currently being submitted to the Duma by the government directly, and a significant part of the bills that deputies are introducing are fromthe same federal ministries and departments. This is not only about documents the authorship of which officially belongs to the Cabinet of Ministers. Behind a significant part of the drafts formally submitted by the deputies, in fact, are the same federal ministries and departments, as well as some other authorities, such as the Investigative Committee or the Prosecutor General’s Office. As for the latter, everything is very simple here: for bodies that do not have the right to legislative initiative, but which have a lot of ideas about arranging Russia, lawmaking, disguised under a Duma pseudonym, is a simple and quite effective way to bring these ideas to life.

Here is how deputy Alexander Kulikov assessed the “achievements” of the Duma of the 5th convocation:

The lower chamber, like the entire parliament as a whole, has completely lost its independent significance during this convocation. Clear evidence of this is the attitude of Russian ministers towards the Duma. Previously, it was impossible to even imagine that they would ignore calls to the building on OkhotnyRyad. However, the current situation is such that, for example, Vitaly Mutko, after the disastrous Olympics in Vancouver, allowed himself defiantly not to come to the indignant deputies. And this is understandable: the State Duma has neither the authority nor, most importantly, the desire to dismiss the members of the Cabinet of Ministers who have made a mistake. Yes, how canwe speak of the Duma dismissing them, if the Duma does not even dare to criticize members of the government.

The draft laws of United Russia dominated the legislative process. The legislative initiatives of the other three factions were not considered at all in this convocation. Even the amendments made by the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, the Liberal Democratic Party and A Just Russia were rejected, no matter how good they were. The State Duma, in fact, failed to cope with its main strategic task—the development of laws that would meet the interests of the majority of the population. This happened due to the fact that the real decision-making was in the hands of the absolute majority, which finally turned into a well-functioning legal department of the Presidential Administration, adopting all the laws coming down “from above.” In this regard, it is not surprising that the level of public confidence in the Russian parliament has fallen even more in comparison with previous periods.21

Boris Gryzlov, one of its speakers, described the state of the highest representative body of power most precisely: “Parliament is not a place for discussion.”22 And the Duma fully justified these words.23 The practice of using the right of suspensive veto by the president has practically ceased. As already mentioned, President Yeltsin exercised this right an average of 50 times a year. In six years, from 1994 to 2000, Yeltsin vetoed 307 laws. During the first two post-Yeltsin years, as the parliament was gradually “tamed,” President Putin exercised this right 29 times. Over the next eight years (2002–2010), laws adopted by the Duma were vetoed only 21 times, that is, an average of 2.5 times a year, and even then in some cases for purely technical reasons. This was explained by the fact that the leader of a sovereign democratic state simply cannot often use the right of veto, because the vast majority of bills that become laws with the tacit approval of parliament are written by his own administration.24

But the Duma also lost its veto power. American scientists Thomas Remington and PaulChaisty, who studied the Russian parliament, argue that since 2003 the State Duma has ceased to be a veto player and has lost a significant role in the political decision-making process. How was this expressed? Firstly, the bills introduced by the executive branch began to be considered much faster than in the 1990s. Secondly, the number of draft laws that were introduced by the executive branch and rejected by the State Duma has practically vanished. Thirdly, discussions in the State Duma have ceased. At least from the studies that are currently available, this becomes obvious.25

In such a situation, the deputies are only responsible for providing the necessary “background noise.” The real “generators” of bills are the government and the Kremlin. The State Duma is turning into a mere platform on which various groups near the government defend their interests, and for these groups the “crazy printer” is just a very convenient aid.26

The report of the Lawmaking Assistance Center of the Institute for Socio-Economic and Political Research shows that, contrary to expectations, the independence of the parliament by the 7th convocation decreased: in the first “kick-off” session of the State Duma, the share of government initiatives sharply increased among the adopted bills in at least one of the readings (from 41 to 71%), and the share of parliamentary bills decreased from a record 46% in the pre-election session to 17%. A significant increase in the share of consensus votinguniting all factions was also noted. During the first readings, the consensus vote rate remained at the same level in the fall, about 62%, and during the second readings, consolidated support for bills is now twice as common as before the elections— 55.5% of adopted bills (previously this figure usually did not exceed 40%). Of the 26 socio-economic laws of the “budget package,” almost a third (31%) were adopted by consensus vote or votes of three out of four parliamentary factions. Thus, the Duma has become to an even greater extent a monolithic bloc of deputies, in which party differences are determined only by signboards on the doors of party premises.

And if the 6th Duma was called a “crazy printer”—in fact, a tool that could print anything, then the 7th Duma became an exclusively controllable printer. Whatever task will be given, it will do it.27

Distortion of reasonable parliamentary procedures

We will not go into too much detail on this issue, because then we would have to write another big book. We will only briefly outline the problem. It consists in a specific Russian understanding of the importance of procedures in ensuring human rights and freedoms. Any well-written procedure can be both a barrier to the arbitrariness of the state and a stumbling block in the implementation of the law (as, for example, is the case with the procedure for coordinating the holding of public events). Parliamentary procedures are one of the most important guarantees for the right of the population to participate in the management of state affairs. It is they which determine the parameters of parliamentary discussions, the functional purpose and timing of each of the readings of the bill, the procedure for making amendments, public and professional evaluation, and much more. It is in their power to reduce the participation of the population or the opposition in lawmaking to zero, or, conversely, to create maximum opportunities for taking their opinion into account.

Parliamentary procedures and lawmaking are a longstanding pain for Russian lawyers. Back in the middle of the last century, scientists raised the question of the need to create a so-called “law on laws” and the role and place of representative bodies in the system of normative regulations. At that time, only the first step was taken in the USSR—a regulatory culture was introduced into the organization of the activities of the Soviets, and the legal force of the regulations was constitutionally raised to the level of law. The “Law on Laws” was not adopted. Since then, 30 years have passed. Today we are the only post-Soviet and European country that does not have such a law. Even the Vatican City State has a regulation law. A Russian draft of such a law was prepared and even passed two readings in the Duma of the second convocation, shortly before the parliamentary coup. But it was shelved and remained in the archives, since normal legislative procedure was not only unnecessary to the parliament of the post-revolutionary model, but also extremely harmful for realizing the true parliamentary goals and objectives.28 Although even more than half of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation have their own “laws on laws.”

At the federal level, in the absence of a “law on laws” regulating the legislative procedure, only the regulations of the chambers of parliaments remained. Now they are approved by resolutions of the State Duma and the Federation Council, that is, they are adopted by a simple majority of votes from those present at the meeting of the chamber, subject to the presence of a quorum. And, accordingly, in the same manner they can change and be adjusted depending on momentary needs. And this is exactly how these regulations are adjusted to the implementation of the goals and objectives of the authorities. They determine the sequence of introduction and consideration of legislative initiatives, the voting procedure, the order and time of speeches of deputies, the possibility of voting for multiple amendments as one option (a list of amendments recommended for adoption and a list recommended for rejection), the possibility of passing the bill in several readings at once, etc. That is, the regulations legalize all the procedures necessary for the rapidity and non-discussion of the passage of bills, and this makes for the distortion of reasonable procedures and the creation of conditions for the impossibility of adopting legal laws. As you know, in order for a law to be recognized as legal, it must be adopted in due course by a representative body formed as a result of free and fair elections.

Our parliaments also have quite odious cases from the point of view of parliamentary procedures. For example, for all its machine-gun legislative speed, the Duma does not have time to consider all the legislative initiatives it inherited from previous parliaments or half-passed bills that hung between convocations. So, the Duma of the 7th convocation inherited more than two thousand of these “hanging proposals.” And then the chairman, VyacheslavVolodin, suggested simply rejecting them, that is, refusing consider them and sending them to the archive. Fortunately, this proposal has remained just “thinking aloud,” since, firstly, it categorically contradicts the very meaning of the right of legislative initiative, according to which the right of an authorized subject corresponds to the obligation of the legislative body to consider such an initiative. Secondly, such a proposal violates the principle of continuity of parliamentary activity. The 7^th Duma partially succeeded in clearing the legislative blockage. Now the new, 8^thconvocation of unconsidered bills acquired less—only a thousand. We suspect that procedurally everything was not entirely smooth here, but at least they didn’t send them to the archive.

A great many complaints were caused by parliamentary procedural modifications during the adoption of amendments to the Russian Constitution in 2020. The Venice Commission analyzed the situation in detail and made the following conclusions:

• the speed of the process of preparation of such wide-ranging amendments absolutely did not correspond to the depth of the content of the amendments, taking into account their impact on society. The speed of the process meant that there was not enough time for proper consultation with civil society before the amendments were passed by Parliament;

• since a Constitutional Assembly was not convened, the Constitution was adopted after the Parliament and the constituent entities of the Russian Federation voted on it. After these stages, in accordance with Article 135 of the Constitution, the amendments were to come into force. The negative result of the specially introduced additional stages, such as consideration by the Constitutional Court and the all-Russian vote, could not become an obstacle for the amendments to come into force. It follows from this that the inclusion of additional stages in the procedure for amending the Constitution is clearly in conflict with Article 16 of the Constitution, which is aimed at protecting “the foundations of the constitutional order of the Russian Federation;”

• giving constitutional status to already existing provisions of ordinary laws (their constitutionalization) is fraught with the exclusion of relevant issues from open discussion and thereby limits the democratic process. Being enshrined in the Constitution, the norms lose their flexibility: they cannot be submitted for consideration by the Constitutional Court and, on the contrary, become a standard for the Constitutional Court when evaluating other legal norms.29

But Parliament had no time to think about it. It needed to complete the task in the shortest possible time.

This is how the portrait of the modern Russian parliament turned out. And if in normal democratic countries there is a principle of separation of powers, where the parliament regularly performs its function, “then the first question that has been brewing for the last 15 years is: why is a parliament needed in Russia?” This is the opinion of political scientist Dmitry Travin: “If we imagine the situation that Deputy Prime Minister Rogozin is going to actively explore space and in the coming years the entire parliament, the entire Federal Assembly, is put into a spacecraft and sent to colonize the Moon, then, the way I feel, is this won’t change anything in Russian life. Moreover, we will learn about the disappearance of the parliament only if we accidentally read the information in the media. The government apparatus will prepare economic laws, the presidential administration will prepare laws related to domestic policy, and the president will sign them. Isn’t that how it works today? Essentially the same thing. The question arises: is this true or not? If so, why does this imitation exist at all? Why doesn’t President Putin one fine day come out and say that in order to save budget funds, we will liquidate our Federal Assembly, since wedon’t need it?”30