Russia Could See More Significant Constitutional Reforms To Brush Western Standards Aside

Russia’s Constitution may undergo new substantial amendments, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma Pyotr Tolstoy said during the session titled The Culture of Legislative Activity at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum.

According to Tolstoy, for the past 30 years, Russia had been trying to conform to global standards, “which turned out to be Western standards” and ultimately did not take root. He compared this effort to grafting a plastic branch onto a living tree.

“Back in the Yeltsin era, we had a lot of such branches stuck into the tree of Russian life. Most of them withered, and now present a rather pitiful sight,” he said.

The lawmaker emphasized that significant changes have occurred in Russian society since the start of the special military operation, and that legislation must evolve to meet new demands. Tolstoy recalled that five years have passed since the last constitutional reform. In his view, “given the circumstances under which our current Constitution was written,” further changes to the country’s fundamental law are to be expected.

“I am confident that these changes still lie ahead. And perhaps they will be much more substantial than those we discussed five years ago,” he stated.

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The State Duma is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia, with the upper house being the Federation Council. It was established by the Constitution of the Russian Federation in 1993. The Duma headquarters are located in central Moscow, a few steps from Manege Square. Its members are referred to as deputies. The State Duma replaced the Supreme Soviet as a result of the new constitution introduced by Boris Yeltsin in the aftermath of the Russian constitutional crisis of 1993, and approved in a nationwide referendum. In the 2007 and 2011 Russian legislative elections a full party-list proportional representation with 7% electoral threshold system was used, but this was subsequently repealed. The legislature's term length was initially 2 years in the 1993–1995 elections period, and 4 years in 1999–2007 elections period; since the 2011 elections the term length is 5 years.