The first political decision by the State Duma of the 5th convocation has proved the expectations for worsening of the democratic situation. 

The Lower Chamber has passed with a vast majority the killing amendments in the many-times-amended federal constitutional law “On Referendum in the Russian Federation”.  As a result, the existing actual ban on the referendums was turned into a legally confirmed ban – the amended law was passed in the third reading on 4 April.

Only dying out in the parliament communists voted against the amendments and left demonstratively the House of Parliament after the voting results were announced. It was exactly the CPRF that made several serious attempts to put important political questions on the Russian referendum. All those attempts were unsuccessful as every time the Central Elective Commission and the Supreme Court declined the initiative due to its “contradiction to the law”, as if the norm of direct validity of the Constitution articles had been canceled, including the people’s right for referendums.     

That time Communists received a weak but positive support in the Constitutional court. A year ago it recognized to be unconstitutional the ban put on making referendums regarding budget spending, taxation, amnesty and pardon. Actually, after such decisions by the Constitutional Court the parliament must make promptly the corresponding amendments. And really the Duma did it – it made the bad law even worse!      

Now instead of particular bans the new Duma staff approved of the more generalized prohibitive formula. From now on no questions can be put on referendum that are “within the competence of the federal bodies of power”. And there is no national-important question that wouldn’t be referred by the Constitution to the competence of parliament, government or president! That means, now practically any question proposed for referendum can be refused absolutely legally! 

It’s difficult to comprehend the reasons of this many-year war by the Kremlin and pro-Kremlin Duma deputies against what does not exist anyway. The last referendum in Russia was held in 1993! It’s exactly then that the today’s Constitution was adopted the articles from which are garbaged by our “lawmakers” time after time. 15 years of referendum abstinence and today’s such a sudden struggle and passions going on – all that needs to be explained.    

The key to understanding may be found in the comment by the speaker Gryzlov. This terse man sometimes utters “imperishable” sentences expressing the point of the problem. It’s enough to recall his “Parliament is no place for discussions” or “Streets are no place for demonstrations”. Now his comment was that the new edition of the law will “make a barrier in using referendums for populist purposes”.  

It’s interesting to see what other purposes referendums could be reasoned with. It shall be reminded that “people” is “populus” in Latin. According to the Constitution, people exercise their power through referendums and free elections. So any referendum in any country is a certain kind of populist action, i.e. direct expression of people’s clear will on important for people question. The fact that no referendums have been carried out in Russia since the moment of adopting the existing Constitution only proves that this form of sovereignty was de facto cancelled in the country.

Having mastered the art of emasculating and falsifying the elections, always getting the “right” outcomes, the bureaucratic class ruling in Russia is very afraid of referendums, as that could be an easy way for people to impose their will on bureaucracy and to begin to feel they can master in the country. So the main motivation and chief slogan by bureaucrats is preventing people from real influencing on the state’s matters.  

So comrade Gryzlov might conclude that “Being engaged in democracy is not people’s business”.