#6157
[Second Issue of the Day]
#13
St. Petersburg Times
March 26, 2002
Lessons in Comparative Democracy
By Vladimir Kovalyev
A COUPLE of weeks ago, March 8 to be exact, I found myself at the Finnish parliament in Helsinki. Although back in Russia this was, of course, International Women's Day and I probably should have been presenting flowers to all the people in my life whom I fail to appreciate properly the other 364 days of the year, instead I was being ushered around the Suomen Eduskunta (the Parliament of Finland) by a female deputy of the chamber.
Naturally, I was curious about the differences between Russian and Finnish legislative practices. For instance, faithful readers may remember that I wrote a column last fall about how the deputies of the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly frantically run around the chamber during the big votes to cast ballots for their absent colleagues.
"This question may sound stupid," I said, fearing that any question based on Russian practice may, indeed, sound stupid, "but can you vote in place of another deputy if he or she is absent? You may have heard that this is a common practice in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly and even in the State Duma."
I could see an expression of complete surprise wash over her face.
"No, you can't do that," she said politely after she got over her shock. "Even if a deputy is pregnant and absent for a long time, she is simply absent, and nobody is allowed to vote for her."
Last week, I was back in the Legislative Assembly, watching in amazement as deputy Igor Mikhailov ran from table to table, doing the voting honors for a surprisingly large number of deputies, who may or may not have been pregnant but certainly weren't present at the session.
Fellow deputy Viktor Yevtukhov, a Unity member who had sponsored the bill being slowly voted down, watched Mikhailov vote and vote and vote.
"A lot of issues that have not been resolved could have been settled if we had a strict ban on voting in someone else's place," Yevtukhov told me with a sigh. "The Finns are absolutely right. This shows the level of their legal culture, which is one of the highest in the world."
I suppose that there is a reason why the Finnish system looks so mature compared to our wild parliament. The Finnish system has been in place more or less as it is now since 1906, and the constitutional provisions controlling the activity of legislators hasn't changed significantly since the mid-1980s. The same number of deputies - 200 - have worked in the same building for more than 70 years, spending at least 150 days a year in session.
As my guide pointed out to me old black-and-white photographs of the parliament building and the legislature in session, I was overwhelmed by an enviable feeling of stability. As I stood in the chamber itself, I noticed that the only things that seemed to have changed since those pictures were taken was some of the furniture and the microphones on the deputies' desks.
But some other things have changed in Finland and these changes too show an advanced society moving forward. The most noticeable change that struck me - since it was March 8 - was the increase in the number of female deputies. In 1907, Finland had 19 women in parliament and now there are 72.
There is one woman, by the way, currently serving in the St. Petersburg Legislative Assembly, and I can't report that she is always treated with the respect that she deserves. On more than one occasion, I've seen Yabloko deputy Natalya Yevdokimova nearly reduced to tears after one or another "colleague" insulted her on the floor of the chamber. And who can forget the indelible image of Duma deputy Vladimir Zhirinovsky pulling the hair of a female deputy during a legislative session? These colorful images project the state of Russian legal culture.
Of course, some may argue that St. Petersburg has an even more venerable parliamentary system than Finland, pointing out that there were local and national legislatures in Russia before the 1917 revolution.
But I think that it is the gap of more than 70 years that seems more important whenever I see a deputy walking past me with a fat key ring of his colleagues' voting keys.
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