Today, the State Duma will complete its work in the spring session, which lasted seven months. Summing up its results, the speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament Vyacheslav Volodin noted that it was very eventful. The deputies, he said, have worked out two blocks of questions. The first one is the changes in the Constitution, which were necessary for the implementation of the President's message to the Federal Assembly. They concerned constitutional amendments, which were approved during a nationwide vote.
Let me remind you of the most important ones: the priority of domestic legislation over international law, Russia is the successor of the USSR, Russia honors the memory of ancestors who transmitted ideals and faith in God, ensures the protection of historical truth, the state-forming language is Russian, children are a priority of state policy, officials cannot have citizenship of another country and accounts abroad, indexation of pensions is carried out at least once a year, calls for violation of the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation are equated with extremism.
The second block of questions, according to the Chairman of the State Duma, is "legislative provision of priority measures to support citizens and business in a pandemic, as well as measures for the restoration and development of affected sectors of the economy." This is a very essential part of parliamentary work. The coronavirus has brought down many economic indicators, the income of the population has dropped significantly. Solutions were needed to help overcome the consequences of the crisis.
The most important thing is that the adopted legislative act should work and not gather dust in a closet. This is not at all easy to do. In the 90s of the last century, the Supreme Soviet was sometimes a funny, sometimes a shameful sight. Moreover, the two branches of government - executive and legislative - could not find a common language. As a result, many laws were passed in opposition to the president, which made them ineffective or simply inoperative.
The situation today is completely different. The President, the government and the State Duma fully coordinate actions and decisions. And, by the way, it is important that the Duma, according to the new Constitution, controls the activities of the government, whose members are accountable to the deputies (including Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin). Again, in the 1990s, ministers could well afford to ignore the request to report to plenary. Today, nothing like this can be imagined.
Interaction between the branches of government is based on mutual respect and willingness to cooperate.
The speaker expressed the hope that "these topics will help to understand how effectively the Russian government is solving the tasks set by the President of the Russian Federation in the message, how effectively the government is solving the issues of supporting citizens in connection with the pandemic." “And of course, it is important that the economy develops,” he added.
The concluding session can be called historic in terms of the importance of the adopted laws and amendments to the Constitution. Constitutional changes are shaping a new image of Russia, laying down development mechanisms for many years to come. And the fact that the people's representatives worked out all the president's initiatives without the slightest delay demonstrates that the lower house of parliament is working like clockwork today. I believe that the current deputy corps understands exactly the degree of importance of the tasks they are solving. If we turn again to the experience of the 1990s, then the changes that have taken place seem striking. Responsibility and discipline - these are the qualities that distinguish parliamentary activity today.
The author's point of view may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.