State Duma of the Russian Federation of the 7th Convocation: Between “Sleeping Potential” and Party Discipline

In the run-up to the elections of 18 September 2016, suggestions were made that a change in the rules for electing the State Duma (a return to a mixed majority-proportional system) would affect the qualitative composition of the deputy corps.^11. See for example Kynev, Lyubarev, Maximov 2015; Mintusov (ed.) 2016; Mixed districts 2016. Today, a year since the Duma campaign, we already have sufficient information to move from hypothetical arguments to a specific study not only of the composition, but also the style of work of the new parliament.

Existing data allow us to say that two different tendencies exist in the Duma. One of them is connected with the change in the composition of the deputy corps, caused by the addition of a majority component, which has influenced the principles of selecting candidates, and by a number of other causes—from the assumption of a low turn-out to the emergence of new bans and restrictions in legislation. Another involves the change in style of work of the lower chamber of the Federal Assembly. Besides efforts directly toward reducing scandalous behavior and overcoming the reputation of a “maniacal printer,” this concerns attempts by the leadership of the Duma in general and individual parliamentary groups to regulate and centralize the lawmaking process as much as possible. If the first tendency involves increasing political independence of deputies (as a consequence of the increase of the importance of their personal qualities at elections), the second means an even greater reduction of their influence on decisions taken by the Duma. This article provides a detailed analysis of these tendencies.     

It's High Time We Understood Russia with Our Heads: Interview with Aleksandr Lebed

Aleksandr Lebed, secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, visited Literaturnaia gazeta a few days ago, but it feels as if at least a month has gone by. In the few days since our meeting, Aleksandr Lebed has become the target of militants in the Duma headed by a general from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, one who certainly achieved no glory on the Chechen battlefields, and hence attempted to exact his revenge from the podium of the State Duma to the accompaniment of stormy applause from the Communists; as for the latter, one never knows whether they want war or peace.     

Will We Be Able to Stop It?

The ability to effectively oppose political extremism will be helped by a law that the Duma has begun to consider.     

Defending the Institutional Status Quo: Communist Leadership of the Second Russian State Duma, 1996–99

The 1995 Russian parliamentary elections returned a State Duma dominated by an alliance of the Communist Party (CPRF) and the Agrarian (APG) and Popular Power (PP) groupings, whose combined number fell just four votes short of an overall majority. Such a powerful voting bloc might have been expected to undo the power‐sharing principles on which the First Duma (1994–95) operated. Rather than challenge the status quo, however, the CPRF defended it on several occasions. In this paper, I argue that existing arrangements held benefits for the CPRF and its leftist allies. In the absence of a stable, disciplined majority, the Duma's rules gave leftist deputies the incentives and flexibility to organize collectively.     

Gennady Korepanov: "We Are Obliged to Guard Russian Citizens Against Cruelty"

The speaker of the Tiumen Oblast Duma Sergei Korepanov argues that the chief tasks of the police reform are to forewarn citizens about possible crimes and to prepare a new kind of police.     

The Kremlin and the Government Do Not Agree with the Duma

At the last session of the Duma, the deputies adopted amendments to the law on local self-government, allowing the reform, against which the governors have as a body been actively speaking out recently, to be "forgotten" for a time by the regions.     

Problems in organization of medical criminological registration and personality identification for subjects occupationally exposed to life risk

The paper discusses problems in organization of identification studies under conditions of mass deaths as exemplified by forensic medical records of medical criminological identification studies of subjects killed during war conflict in Chechnya. The evolution of the organization model of identification studies is shown transformation of organization philosophy, formation of expert algorithms, formalization and technologic realization of expert solutions.     

The Place of Local Power

What is the reform of local self-government? How will its conduct affect the life of the country? How will the tax and social policies of the state change? The main author of the reform, deputy head of the President's Administration Dmitry Kozak, participating in the "Business Breakfast" at Rossiiskaia gazeta, talks about this on the eve of the second reading in the Duma of the packet of draft laws on the reform of federative relationships and of local self-government.     

Reform at a Half Year from Readiness,or What Exactly "Independence in the Resolution of Questions of Local Significance" Is Going to Mean

The heat of the discussion on the coming municipal reform has reached a high point. Evidence of this can be found, in particular, in what happened in the Kaliningrad State Council. Unfortunately, the time until the start of the active phase of the reform—on January 1, 2006—is growing smaller and smaller, while the number of questions that need to be resolved is not diminishing, and is even increasing. On July 8, the State Duma is to consider a law concerning the date for the beginning of the reform. And from all indications, the deputies will not be hurrying it.     

Death penalty politics and symbolic law in Russia

In contemporary Russia there is widespread support for the death penalty. Recent Russian presidents have endorsed the nation’s entry into the European Community (EC). The dilemma is that the price of membership into the EC is total abolition of capital punishment. The Russian Duma is much less popular than the president, even though it sides with public opinion in supporting capital punishment. Since 1997, these conflicting political positions have been temporarily neutralized by leaving capital punishment legislation in place but allowing the Russian president to offer clemency to all sentenced to death. In 1999, the Constitutional Court of Russia placed a moratorium on all death sentences until jury trials are re-introduced throughout the nation.     

Cluster munitions: public health and international humanitarian law perspectives

As a result of civilian deaths in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Chechnya, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, cluster munitions have been recognised to pose a grave threat to civilian populations because of their limited precision and problematically high rate of initial failure to explode. Efforts are intensifying to ban cluster munitions and to mandate those who have discharged them to defuse them effectively so as to reduce the risks to civilians. This editorial reviews these efforts and identifies a need for them to be actively supported by both the legal and medical communities.     

Duma-2014 Report

Why do hybrid regimes imitate democratic institutions? Do they serve exclusively as a showy formality for the external, mainly Western, audiences or do they perform some substantive functions within the framework of a political system? Within the broader context of diffusion of ideas across countries, the author of this paper explains the nature of the Russian State Duma, which, over the last 10 years, has become a kind of administrative stock exchange for the Russian political elites, and challenges the common simplistic view of the current Russian legislative process as “rubber-stamping” orchestrated by the executive branch.     

The Power Vertical Is Seeking Support—and Finding It Far from the Capital and Regional Centers

At the next session of the Council of the Federation the law "On the General Principles of Organization of Local Self-Government in the RF" that was adopted by the State Duma will be considered. This will probably be the most difficult test for the draft law. Even those governors who understand in their minds the necessity for the changes embodied in it are not always prepared to accept them in their hearts. What will be more weighty: logic or personal ambitions? This will be clear from the way that the representatives of the regions vote in the Council of the Federation. Many analysts predict a searing battle.     

Presidential Support in the Russian State Duma

Recent comparative research on presidential systems has analyzed the ways in which presidents build majorities for their legislative agendas. Through an analysis of roll‐call votes from the 2000‐03 Russian State Duma on a set of issues reflecting President Putin's legislative agenda, I examine the impact of parliamentary party affiliation, policy preferences, issue type, and electoral mandate type on structuring floor support for the president. I also assess the implications of a mixed electoral system for building legislative coalitions in multiparty legislatures. Further, my findings shed light on Putin's recent reforms of the Duma's rules and procedures and the country's electoral system.     

The Internet as a New Factor in State and Public Development

On 14 March, when the State Duma introduced a bill that would have instituted a moratorium on executions, it almost had to dissolve itself—not completely, of course, for a quorum was maintained, but almost. Before the bill was put up for discussion, the LDPR [Liberal Democratic Party of Russia] faction (50 people) left (on private business), and during the final vote 193 deputies abstained; whether they went for a walk or simply stayed in their seats but did not press the button is unknown, but they refused to deal with one of the questions that is most important for Russia's future (there were 176 votes "against" and 75 "for" the bill).     

中俄继承法若干问题比较

俄罗斯民法典第三部分于 2 0 0 1年 11月 1日在国家杜马通过 ,2 0 0 2年 11月 14日经联邦委员会批准。该法典的继承编用 5章 75条对继承权进行了规定 ,其对遗产范围的确定、法定继承人的顺序、接受和放弃继承的期限、遗产的执行和管理以及特殊形式遗产的继承等方面都规定得较为详细 ,且与我国现行继承法有较大差异。中国现行的继承法制定得比较早 ,对继承法存在的问题以及解决的途径不少学者已经进行了研究。为此 ,在介绍俄罗斯民法典继承编规定的同时 ,将其与我国现行继承法进行比较 ,以期对今后我国继承法的修订有所参考和借鉴。     

A Human Rights Law of Internal Armed Conflict: The European Court of Human Rights in Chechnya

The cases on Chechnya recently decided by the European Courtof Human Rights force us to re-evaluate the relationship betweenhuman rights law and humanitarian law. Since the InternationalCourt of Justice held that humanitarian law is lex specialisto human rights law in 1996 – if not since the TehranConference of 1968 – it has been widely accepted that‘human rights in armed conflict’ refers to humanitarianlaw. The ECtHR has directly applied human rights law to theconduct of hostilities in internal armed conflicts. The rulesit has applied may prove controversial, but humanitarian law’slimited substantive scope and poor record of achieving compliancein internal armed conflicts suggest the importance of this newapproach.     

The ICC and Russian Constitutional Problems

The Statute of the International Criminal Court (the ICC Statute)has not yet been submitted to the Russian parliamentary chambers,the Duma, and the Council of the Federation. However, an Inter-AgencyPanel led by the Ministry of Justice has been set up, with aview to drafting amendments to current Russian legislation andfacilitating Russia's cooperation with the ICC. Major problemsstanding in the way of Russia's ratification include certainprovisions of Russia's Constitution, which, for instance, donot provide for an international court substituting nationalcourts, and lay down the right to jury trial and the right toseek pardon. However, there are various ways of reconcilingthe Constitution with the ICC Statute. In short, there are noinsurmountable legal hurdles to harmonizing the Russian Constitutionand laws with the ICC Statute: the question of Russia's ratificationis mostly a question of political will.     

Rediscovering corruption’s other side: bribing for peace in post-conflict Kosovo and Chechnya

Conventional approaches towards the impact of corruption on post-conflict stabilization suggest that corrupt practices impede a successful war to peace transition. When transparency and accountability are absent, the risk of corruption threatens to turn the state apparatus into a tool of enrichment for those in power and affect the “exit” from violence/insurgency towards demobilization and reintegration. However, corruption may have redeeming values by serving the function of a power-sharing arrangement between antagonistic parties, thereby, reinforcing peace. Radical anti-corruption programs in post-conflicts situations may bring adverse results such as a renewal of violence. Aimed to fill the void in research on corruption in post-conflict situations, the article inquires about the links between corruption, peacebuilding and violent non-state actors. By combining various disciplinary approaches, the article theorizes the outcomes of corruption in post-conflict situations and discusses them in the context of Kosovo and Chechnya.     

“When They Come for You”: Legal Mobilization in New Authoritarian Russia

As of 2012, the Russian State Duma passed a string of repressive laws on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), surveillance, and high treason. Under this “new authoritarian” regime, a growing number of Russians are investigated by the security services or put on trial for high treason. NGOs face selective prosecution and surprise inspections. While we know how lawyers use legal mobilization in democratic regimes where they can expect courts to be fair, legal mobilization remains understudied in regimes moving toward authoritarianism, where authorities pass repressive laws but enforce them erratically. Drawing on interviews with Russian lawyers, this article examines how lawyers represent two victim groups of state coercion: Russians under investigation for treason and prosecuted human rights NGOs. By examining how lawyers make strategic choices while coping with unfair courts, the random enforcement of laws, and shrinking resources, this article argues that state coercion does not deter lawyers from legal mobilization at domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights. Instead, repressive laws push lawyers to reinvent their everyday practices to counter repressive legislation and conviction bias in the criminal justice system.