“Drawers” technology in the Russian legislative process

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Author: Sergey Zaikin

DOI: 10.21128/1812-7126-2019-2-15-32

Keywords: amendments on bill; constitutional principle of trust; legislative process; technology of "drawers"

Abstract

The Constitution of the Russian Federation has only general parameters of federal legislative procedure. The details of the regulation of this institution are set in the rules of procedure for the chambers of the Federal Assembly. Meanwhile, the analysis of legislative practice shows a quite ambiguous phenomenon, which can lead to a violation of the constitutional principle of mutual trust between society and governmental bodies. This paper describes and analyzes the formation and development of the technology of “drawers” in federal legislative procedure. This technology has two directions. In the introduction, the author explains his metaphor of a drawer in the context of legislative procedure. The first part of the paper is devoted to a type of the abovementioned technology called “covering,” where the resonant norms in the bill divert the attention from other important provisions. The second part of the paper deals with another type of “drawer”: the transformation. This means that the bill dramatically changes its concert or topic or becomes a mix of different topics because of the proposed amendments. Different examples of laws are given that show that the technology of “drawers” is universal and that its implementation does not depend on the sphere of regulation, be it the formation of a prosecutorial system, freedom of assembly, status of unauthorized construction, or transformation of municipal entities. The possible and real consequences of the influence of such laws on social relationships are also described. The third part of the paper gives the basic impression about the peculiarities of the constitutional principle of mutual trust between society and governmental bodies. Additionally, the questions about the goals of implementing “drawers” technology are set forth and a warning of possible negative consequences for further realization of the abovementioned technology is given. From the author’s point of view, the existence of the technology of “drawers” in legislative procedure is not a good idea in an unhealthy social atmosphere of distrust. In conclusion, the author underlines the problem of lack of transparency and validity during the adoption of bills, which can lead to a reduction in the level of social trust.

About the author: Sergey Zaikin – Senior Lecturer, Constitutional and municipal law chair, Kutafin Moscow State Law University, Moscow, Russia.

Citation: Zaikin S. (2019) Tekhnologiya “vydvizhnykh yashchikov” v rossiyskom zakonodatel'nom protsesse [“Drawers” technology in the Russian legislative process]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 15–32. (In Russian).

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