MOSCOW, July 8 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia’s State Duma lower parliament house on Friday closed up its spring session.
During the season, the lower house passed 264 federal laws, and three constitutional laws, Duma speaker Boris Gryzlov said summing up the results.
The next, autumn, session will be least one in the current fifth convocation. The new Duma that will be elected in December will have a term of five years, instead of the current four.
“Elections are getting nearer, and it tells on the attitudes voiced in some speeches at plenary meetings,” Gryzlov said in his traditional address to the Duma. “But the speed and the quality of lawmaking activities must not depend on how soon the elections are. We must create and are creating legal framework for solving tasks of the country’s development, for improving the lives of Russian citizens.”
“The key issue of the quality of life is security,” he said. “During this session, we have passed a law on police and are continuing efforts to provide legal backing for all the aspects of reforms of interior bodies, such as social guarantees for police officers, regulation of service conditions, etc.”
According to the speaker, “the most important task for lawmakers and the entire parliament is to keep reforms in the law enforcement sphere under control.”
“The more so as many of us are professionals in this sphere,” he added.
“Parliamentary vacations are ahead, and then – a final session of the fifth convocation. We are all getting ready for elections,” he went on. “And I think that the lawmakers will spend the next two months meeting with their voters, visiting enterprises in regions of their responsibility. I am sure that voters’ mandates would be incorporated into parties’ election programs.”
“But we still have possibilities to make the best use of the time we have before the convocation is over. We must try to solve the problems that are currently facing the people and hampering the country’s economic development,” Gryzlov stressed.
“I have no doubts that in conditions of the election campaign we will be able to keep the constructive character of our work on laws we are passing and that are regulating the country’s life,” he added and declared the spring session closed.