Russia’s Constitutional Court has decided that it is possible to slightly reduce the term of the current State Duma to move the 2016 poll to a single elections day in September. The court noted, however, that this would be an extraordinary measure.
“The Constitution does not exclude the possibility of a
one-time change to the federal law that would change the date of
forthcoming parliamentary elections and reduce the real term of
powers of the current State Duma convocation under the condition
that such a reduction is made for the sake of some
constitutionally important objectives,” the deputy chairman
of the Constitutional Court, Sergey Mavrin, announced Wednesday.
The judge emphasized in his statement that the change of the
elections date was an extraordinary measure.
The statement came in reply to a request from the Federation
Council, Russia’s upper house of parliament, that asked the
Constitutional Court to rule on if it was possible to move the
2016 parliamentary elections from early December to the third
Sunday in September – the universal elections day. The request
was made after the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of
parliament, on June 19 gave a first reading to a bill ordering
the change of poll date.
The court verdict also detailed the conditions under which such
move was possible: it must be a one-off, reduce the terms of
lawmakers’ powers by a few months at most, and must not interrupt
the work of the State Duma or the length of parliamentary terms
in general. It also stated that the rescheduling should be
announced well in advance so that all political parties had time
to prepare for the polls and that the principle of political
competition was not violated.
The head of the Presidential Administration, Sergey Ivanov,
earlier told the press that it was not right for the Kremlin to
influence the decision on the date of the State Duma elections in
any way. He added that as a citizen he saw a rational point in
such a step, as it would save a lot of budget funds, but the real
decision had to be made by the Constitutional Court and the
parliament itself.
The suggestion to move the elections date was almost immediately
met with criticism from the parliamentary opposition, especially
the Communist Party. Its leader, Gennady Zyuganov, called the
step “disrespectful to the country and voters” and said
that it would prevent the Communists from holding a proper
election campaign. Another of Zyuganov’s concerns was that if the
elections were held in September, major political debates would
be held and televised in August “when half the people are
away on vacation, and the other half are busy bringing in the
harvest.”
In response to Wednesday’s decision by the Constitutional Court,
Communist Party MP Vadim Solovyov promised that his caucus would
contest this ruling in the Constitutional Court, and if this
failed in the European Court of Human Rights.
The State Duma has scheduled the second and third hearings of the
elections date bill for July 3. Valentina Matviyenko, the speaker
of the Federation Council, earlier told reporters that if the
bill was passed by the State Duma, the Federation Council would
consider it on July 8.