#14
Moscow Times
December 11, 2002
Constitution Under Fire
By Vladimir Ryzhkov
Vladimir Ryzhkov, an independent State Duma deputy, contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.

When Russians went to the polls nine years ago to vote on a new Constitution, they understood very well why they had been called upon to cast their ballots. But they had only a vague idea just what they were actually voting on. They were driven by hope and fear, as people usually are in such situations.

Russians were frightened. They had just seen tanks open fire on the parliament -- a small-scale civil war in the heart of the capital. The new constitution promised stability and an end to civil strife. Elections to a new parliament were called at the same time, and hastily formed parties battled for seats in the still non-existent Federal Assembly. In this sort of hysterical state, a nation will buy just about anything. And that's what happened.

No one really read the Constitution all that closely until after its adoption. I well remember how the deputies of the first post-Soviet State Duma studied the nation's basic law throughout their term in the legislature. As it turned out, the Constitution we had passed more or less blindly wasn't all that bad. The new Constitution was based on sound, modern principles. The articles laying the foundations of the constitutional order -- the designation of Russia as a "democratic federal rule-of-law state with a republican form of governance," its provisions on civil and human rights, the justice system and local government -- would do honor to any democratic country in the world.

To this day, the Constitution "weighs" on legislators, compelling them to adopt important laws even when they enjoy little real support. This was the case with the law on alternative military service, which the Duma recently passed, and the decision to introduce universal trial by jury.

At the same time, the circumstances in which the 1993 Constitution arose, and the personalities of those who defined its basic parameters, left an indelible mark on the document itself, and on the political life of the country. The Constitution served as the table at which the victors of October 1993 gathered to feast.

At the head of the table sat Boris Yeltsin, the tsar-like democrat. The powers of the president enshrined in the 1993 constitution seemed to have been based on those of Emperor Nicholas II following the October Manifesto of 1905 -- head of state, guarantor of the Constitution, defender of the country's sovereignty and integrity, coordinator of all branches of power, chief architect of domestic and foreign policy, commander-in-chief, etc. The power of the president, which Yeltsin used to bring Soviet institutions to heel and to sweep away Soviet symbols, is now being used by his successor, Vladimir Putin, to restore a number of those institutions and symbols. The president's excessive constitutional powers constitute the main flaw in the political system. Far too much depends on who's in the Kremlin, and who's there with him. The temptations are too great, and the checks are too feeble.

After its defeat in October 1993, parliament was relegated to the servants' table. The Federal Assembly was shorn of real power and excluded from the process of handing out ministerial portfolios, making it one of the weakest parliaments in Europe from a constitutional and political point of view. The assembly has proven especially weak in "Putin's" Russia, where the head of state effectively controls both chambers of the legislature without belonging to a political party. The Duma enjoyed a brief taste of power after the 1998 default, when it participated in the formation of post-Soviet Russia's first (and last?) coalition government, led by Yevgeny Primakov. But since that time no further experiments involving the Duma in Cabinet decisions have been attempted.

The other victors of 1993 fared little better. The regional leaders garnered significant powers and privileges, and seemed to have reserved their place at the head table. The federative organization of the state and the weakness of civil society combined to give them practically unlimited power on home turf, and broad influence on policy at the federal level. All of that has now gone by the wayside. The governors have been herded into the largely irrelevant State Council. Their places at the head table have been taken by Putin's plenipotentiary representatives -- his envoys to the seven federal districts.

The lesson of the last three years is that Russia's federal foundation can be undermined without trampling too rudely on the Constitution. Budget revenues were centralized and federal districts created without violating the Constitution. The Federation Council was reformed and defanged, and a new law on regional government passed that allows Moscow to dismiss elected regional leaders and to dissolve regional legislatures -- all without violating the Constitution. Planned reform of relations between the federal center and local governments could well become the next step in the ongoing building of the executive chain of command.

Thus a Constitution containing the most liberal of principles and freedoms was used to establish a regime controlled by an elected president wielding practically unchecked power. The experience of the past few years has shown that the Constitution permits the most varied, often contradictory developments, from Yeltsin's call for regional leaders to take all the sovereignty they could handle, to Putin's strict "power vertical." From the strong parliament that played a decisive role in forming the Primakov government to the current weak, subservient Federal Assembly. From uncontrolled freedom of speech under Yeltsin, when even state-owned television broadcast strong criticism of the president, to the current unspoken but nonetheless effective censorship of all channels, even those that are privately owned. From wide-open political competition to an unconditional political monopoly.

The Constitution is like a play that allows plenty of room for the director's interpretation. On the basis of a single document, Russia's political elite can create a hymn to freedom and a stirring tale of "order" lost and found.

There is less and less demand for freedom in today's Russia. The demand is for "order." More and more people contend that the norms set out in the Constitution are outdated. Vladimir Platov, governor of the Tver region, recently proposed that the president appoint governors, and that the governors in turn appoint the heads of municipalities and districts -- bypassing the electorate altogether. He also proposed eliminating the president's two-term limit and increasing the length of each term to five years. And Platov is hardly alone.

Many now find the Constitution's democratic and federative principles an annoyance. The enormous powers of the head of state seem to them insufficient. They would like to see the rise of an authoritarian regime that eliminates political competition, public control of the bureaucracy and the battle against monopolies and corruption.

All of this is extremely dangerous. Frequent changes to the basic principles of statehood, the fundamental rules of the game, are signs of a country with strong authoritarian traditions, a weak civil society and unstable democratic institutions. If Russia heads down this slippery slope, it will be following in the footsteps of such countries as Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Pressure on the Constitution is mounting daily. The number of constitutionally "questionable" decisions increases. But the ship is still afloat.

The Constitution is a classic political play. Just like Pushkin's "Boris Godunov," it contains its share of ghosts from the time of Ivan the Terrible and the young Peter the Great. But it is a Russian classic all the same. Not a word should be cut. Nor can we allow it to be rewritten at the whim of those in power. Pushkin is "our everything." But the Constitution is, too. This should be the position of every responsible citizen of the Russian Federation.

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