From: MSN NicknameEagle_wng  (Original Message)    Sent: 2/21/2007 4:45 PM
20.2.2007 22:40 MSK
Violation of the Constitution
Last week's Presidential decrees concerning the replacement of Russian Minister of Defense of Sergey Ivanov with Anatoly Serdyukov and the replacement of President of Chechnya Allu Alkhanov with Ramzan Kadyrov are of interest for three reasons.

One area of interest is to political parties and authorities who depend on real people to run real state offices. Another area of interest concerns the public, which no longer has the possibility of influencing the course of events, but can follow the proceedings on the political scene, sitting in an enormous auditorium called "Russia". They can even place bets on the proceedings and compete with each other on the basis of intuition and guesswork. Finally, the decree is interesting to those who attempt to correlate the proceeding with the vector of political development of Russia and the transformation of its laws. Let us discuss the latter.

The Russian Constitution, (Ch. 4) gives a comprehensive enumeration of the responsibilities of the President, including questions concerning naming people to positions of authority. The President can assign only the high command of the armed forces, his plenipotentiary representatives, colleagues of his administration, and the Security Council. With the agreement of various organs of authority, he can also assign Deputy Chairmen of the government, federal ministers, and ambassadors. The Constitution does not give him the right to assign and displace leaders of the Federation. The law "Concerning the general principles of organization of legislative (representative) and executing agencies of power of the state over subjects of the Russian Federation", to which his edict refers, concerning the resignation of Alkhanov and the designation of Kadyrov, is anti-constitutional. Anyone who reads the Russian Constitution (St. 83) will be convinced of this. According to St. 83, the Constitution itself it is higher than all other Russian laws.

The Constitution contradicts Putin's law and edict designating Alkhanov as Deputy Minister of Justice. This designation is the prerogative of the government, but not the President. It is characteristic that this President's decrees no longer refer to any laws, much less the Constitution.

The designations of Serdyukov as Minister of Defense, and of Ivanov to First Deputy Prime Minister are also faulty, as they relate to the "guarantee of the Constitution". All these designations should be made only at the proposal of the Prime Minister. In the President's decrees there are no references to Fradkov or to proposals by the government.

Possibly, some will consider all these contradictions to be trifles. However, there cannot be rule-of-law if the Supreme Power consciously violates the law, and there cannot be a just state if process rights are violated. Justice is first of all in the observance of process standards. Democracy is first of all the observance of Constitutional democratic procedures. A President who disregards the constitution is not a bit better than a district policeman, who disregards laws concerning the police. The President's violation is worse than that, because an example set by the highest official of state will be gladly picked up by subordinate officials, and the country will very rapidly become an outpost of lawlessness and arbitrariness.
Also published in "Novaya Gazeta" 19.02.2007

Aleksandr PODRABINEK

Related information "Power Structures"
http://www.prima-news.ru/eng/news/articles/2007/2/20/37667.html