Paul
Goble
Staunton, November 18 – The Moscow
media are full of stories that President Vladimir Putin plans to propose
changes in the 1993 Russian Constitution in a message to the Federal Assembly
on December 12 and will announce the establishment of a special 90-person Presidential
council to consider and draft revisions.
But some Russian experts are already
warning that the process itself is fraught with dangers even if Putin gets his
way because discussions about such fundamental issues will inevitably divide
those who will lose power as a result of such changes and those who stand to
gain and may even call into question the stability of the country.
While Russians are more accustomed
to seeing their constitution changed or even entirely replaced than other peoples
and while many in the Russian political elite are thus comfortable in principle
with the idea, many are beginning to ask which possible changes will be
cosmetic and therefore meaningless and which ones will be transforming.
On the “Svobodnaya pressa” portal, Anton
Mardasov surveys some of these attitudes. Dmitry Gudkov, a member of the Duma committee
on constitutional law, says that revising the constitution opens the door to
other changes as well, including a new round of evaluating which Russian laws
are consistent with it and which are not (svpressa.ru/politic/article/77481/).
“We have a mass
of laws which in principle contradict the Constitution,” he says, but any plans
to change the constitution or revise the laws are likely to be resisted because
those proposing these changes are doing so “only to increase their own power.”
Sergey Davidis,
a member of the Coordinating Council of the Opposition, says that the Putin
regime has already changed the constitution a number of times as when it
lengthened the term of the president. Consequently, the current discussion
suggests that it has more than “stylistic” changes on its mind.
But the changes Putin may want are
not necessarily those that others do.
The Russian president may want a more authoritarian constitution, but
his opponents would like one that would restore the division of powers and guarantee
the independence of the courts. Consequently, changing the constitution could
spark more conflict rather than help resolve it.
Yuri Slobodkin, a legal specialist
at the Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology, says that “the authorities will
not change anything fundamental in the Constitution because this is dangerous.” They won’t change the first and second
paragraphs because they define the foundations of the economic system.
However, some around the president
may want to change the third and eighth paragraphs which govern federalism, the
powers of the president, the Federal Asembly, the government, the judicial
system and the organs of local self-administration. Slobodkin says he believes
that boosting local administration may be behind the current drive.
But talking about changing the
constitution will elicit more radical proposals, and the lawyer suggested that
the creation of a Constitutional Council was intended “to block radical
proposals which could lead to a [wholesale] revision of the Fundamental Law.”
But even the changes it may allow could have radical consequences.
Thus, for example, the 1993
Constitution’s ban on a state ideology could be dropped so that Putin could articulate
and promote a new one intended to unify the population. Going much beyond that, however, he
suggested, “could call forth a new wave of protests” which the authorities clearly
do not need.
One Russian official has taken an even
harder line against changes. Vladimir
Lukin, the country’s ombudsman, says that there ought to be “a length
moratorium on changes” in the basic law.” Otherwise, he warns, “Russia will
face chaos which is more terrible than any tyranny” (kommersant.ru/doc/2342466).
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