Both chambers of the Russian Parliament – the State Duma and the Federation Council– have been successfully incorporated into the state control system. They have ceased to be a space for the dialogue between the authorities and society. The public chamber currently under development might possibly bridge this gap

Alexander Mekhanik

One of President Vladimir Putin’s proposals at the cabinet meeting after the Beslan tragedy aiming to reform Russia’s political system was to establish a new assembly– the public chamber. It would become a “space for broad dialogue representing and discussing civil initiatives in detail.” Moreover, as the President put it, “the matter concerns civilian control over what the state apparatus does, including law enforcement and the special services.”
In fact, the president proposed to create the third chamber of the parliament. In a classical democracy, one of the key functions of a legislative representative assembly is to exercise control over executive authorities, over the very same state apparatus and law enforcement agencies. However, the recent events in Beslan demonstrated that the Russian parliament was unable to respond politically to what was happening and established parliamentary control slowly and unwillingly. It simply kept silent, thereby demonstrating its imperfect political adequacy. There are two ways out of this situation: either wait patiently until political parties forming the parliament have matured enough to be able to express the society’s real interests, or address society and non-government organizations directly. The creation of the new chamber can be considered both the continuation of the dialogue started a couple of years ago with public organizations and the indication of the political parties’ and Duma factions’ failure “to be fully adequate to their duties in office.”
Boris Yeltsin was the first to create a public chamber in Russia as part of the Constitutional Assembly held in October 1993 after the elimination of the Supreme Soviet. Its main task was to develop proposals and amendments to the draft Constitution, as well as give political advice on a wide range of social and political issues. In fact, the chamber was a substitute for the parliament until it could be established. Ivan Rybkin headed the council. To put it plainly, the assembly didn’t do much good, and new President Vladimir Putin disbanded it in August 2000.
However, the short and sad life of the Russian public chamber by no means implies that such a approach would never succeed. Most EU countries have socioeconomic councils that are in many respects similar to the proposed Russian public chamber. In France, there is even a separate chapter in the Constitution dealing with such a council, “At the government’s request, the economic and social council produces its conclusion regarding bills, ordinances or decrees as well as legislative proposals submitted to it.”
Since very influential organizations able to mobilize millions of people under its banners are represented in the assembly, it serves as an important place for balancing interests and its recommendations play an important role in French social and political life.
 
Will the public chamber suggested by Russia’s president become equally influential and useful? How could this assembly succeed? These are the questions Expert asked several important public figures. Here are their answers.

Vsevolod Chaplin, Archpriest and Deputy Chairman of the Foreign Church Relations Department at the Moscow Patriarchy:
- Russia has already had experience with a public chamber and I participated in it at the time. Europe has this experience as well. It would be right if all social groups with real interests should be represented in a new public chamber in Russia. I’m confident that religious organizations should also take part in the chamber’s activity. On the one hand, this would help secure stable representation of diverse interests existing in society and find consensus between various groups. On the other hand, this could secure Russia against electoral machinations driven sometimes by short-term narrow, selfish, and spontaneous interests.
Different branches of the government should pay attention to the chamber’s opinion when debating bills, when making crucial decisions in domestic and foreign policy, and when determining the country’s economic policy. This policy will never be constructive if the authorities disregard public opinion and if they don’t take a close look at the stances taken by leading public forces as well as by business, occupational associations, etc.
In terms of controlling over security and law enforcement agencies, such an assembly would hardly be able to get deep insight into specific issues regarding the activities of various agencies, in particular, those related to security. However, the chamber could provide a public evaluation, perhaps, moral assessment of violations, especially as far as corruption is concerned – and this is still a very pressing problem for Russia. It could consolidate society in its fight against terror. We must abandon the trend of imposing all law enforcement functions on the state. Citizens should participate in protecting society.

Evgeny Yuriev, President of Aton Investment Company and Co-Chairman of Delovaya Rossiya:
- The only criteria determining the appropriateness of such an assembly is that how operatively it can ensure feedback between society and the authorities. One cannot say that the social and political chamber under Boris Yeltsin was a non-working institution. But it’s a fact that it had little influence on the life of the state. Today, the president has proposed an organizational solution that has analogues in all developed countries. I hope that it will be efficient.
Given the “intermediary” function of the chamber, its scope should be as wide as possible – across the spectrum of authorities’ activity. The most authoritative representatives of the public should test initiatives put forward by the president, the government, and the Federal Assembly on the public’s behalf. Society, in its turn, will propose its own vision of how to solve urgent problems to the authorities. This vision could be set out in bills, expert evaluations, and so on. It is important that this sharing of ideas begin and it could happen in a variety of forms.

Sergei Borisov, President of Opora Rossii (Russia’s Backbone), and the Russian Public Organization of Small and Mid-Sized Entrepreneurs:
- The public assemblies established by Russian authorities have proven less than successful. The civil society of the early 1990s failed to establish a real dialogue with the authorities. Why did it fail? There were many bright personalities in the chamber but whose interests did they represent, mass public movements or civil institutions? But how on earth could one represent something that is just forming this instant?
In principle, the public chamber is the personal initiative of Russia’s president. Of course, it is important to understand how the president pictures this structure and what results he is hoping for. Yet I think the main thing is to establish an efficiently feedback channel. It is clear that the authorities will never reform themselves. They cannot become really efficient without independent evaluation by civil institutions. At the same time, I think it’s incorrect to burden the public chamber with all sorts of thinkable and unthinkable functions, from expert examination of bills to evaluation of the activity of one or another governor. Strictly speaking, nothing prevents institutions of civil society from acting as initiators for establishing a number of organizations, similar to the one proposed by the president.
The public chamber should be established only under the president, because the Kremlin has become the center of all political processes without exception currently going on in Russia.
I may sound banal but the Russian business community has been trying to establish an on-going dialogue with the authorities for quite a long time. However, these contacts have been and remain sporadic to this day. Analysts, political observers, and other competent people are saying with confidence that relations between business and authorities were, are and will be complicated. Is this kind of idea the result of a lack of state policy with respect to development of entrepreneurship in our country? There is no doubt. In our view, it is a favorable moment now to start developing it. The largest Russian business associations are ready to participate actively, as well as help authorities fight corruption in their own organizations. Who but entrepreneurs are more aware of the real income of a bribe-taking official? And it’s impossible to keep an eye on everything from the Kremlin.

Boris Titov, Chairman of Delovaya Rossiya Public Organization:
- In my view, the public chamber should become a mechanism enabling members of society, who represent its various strata, to take a real part in the process of Russia’s development. But for this to happen, people should feel that the authorities are interested in dialogue.   
The public chamber should not replace the parliament, although legislative examination will be one of the top-priority issues. It is important that the public should be able to participate in drafting bills and not merely be included in the process after the fact. The creation of the public chamber seems designed to redouble control over authorities by society. And control, as I see it, is above all openness when discussing their activity.

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