In last
week's blog posts there was some debate amongst us over the majoritarian versus
consensual nature of the Russian constitution. After researching the nature of
how the constitution was drafted, it’s no wonder we all saw majoritarian
undertones to the mostly consensual institutions the document outlines.
At the fall
of the Soviet Union, the great concern for the country was their failed economic
system and their need to change it, not necessarily the power the government
needed to accomplish that system. The first Russian president, Boris
Yeltsin, believed the only way to accomplish changing the economic structure of
Russia was to have a strong executive power (1). The legislature had different
priorities, however. After they rejected a draft prepared by Yeltsin, they
offered an alternative draft including a slightly more restrained executive
branch, stronger legislative branch, and a series of checks and balances (2). Yeltsin’s
aids added some ideas from this draft to a new version of the constitution, and
it was debated between the legislature and the president. The president was so
eager to reach an agreement, he had the phone lines turned off in the building
they were meeting, known as the White House, and, eventually, had the White House sealed off by the army (1). When the
legislature was still too slow in approving a draft of the constitution, even under these
extreme circumstances, they were arrested on October 2, 1993 for “organizing
mass disorders” (1). A new bicameral parliament was scheduled to be elected in
1994 in addition to a presidential election, but Yeltsin was too eager to get a
constitution passed quickly lest he lose public and political support to wait for a new legislative body to debate its merits. He
appointed his own constitutional congress which finished drafting the
constitution by December 12, 1993, when a referendum was held to ratify it (1).
Clearly, the constitution was not
drafted in a democratic way for this new democracy; however, it was ratified in
a slightly more inclusive manner. As previously stated, a referendum was held
to ratify the new constitution. However, the guidelines for the referendum made
ratification extremely easy. In order for the vote to be valid, only fifty
percent of the enfranchised needed to vote and the constitution needed a simply
majority to come into affect (1). All adults had the vote at this point in time,
yet only fifty-five percent voted in the referendum (3 & 1). Fifty-eight
percent of those who voted were in favor of the new constitution (1). This
means only thirty-one percent of the Russian people formally approved of the
constitution Russia currently operates under as country.
Considering
how much power Yeltsin seems to have had in drafting the constitution, it is impressive the legislature was
able to include checks and balances and other consensus
elements into the constitution at all. Dr. Rainer wrote that the final version of
the constitution “…was largely tailored in accordance with the wishes and needs
of one man” that man being Yeltsin (1). I have to agree with this statement. Yeltsin
clearly had the most influence over the writing of it and the majority of the
population did not even approve it.
1. Constitutions of the World, Grote, Dr. Rainer, “The Russian Federation,”
2. Ludwikowski, 1993, “Constitution Making in the Countries of Former Soviet Dominance,” 170
3. Anderson, Dr. Richard D., 2014, “Discourse, Dictators and Democrats: Russia’s Place in a Global Process,” 101
The creation of a new constitution put conservatives and reformers at odds with one another. The previous Congress of Peoples Deputies that was a part of the legislature under the government of the Soviet Union was filled primarily with conservatives, many of whom wanted to gradually reform the constitution and under the previous constitution the reform fell under their jurisdiction. While they did (under considerable pressure from the President) rewrite almost 75% of the constitution, it did make any radical changes to the government that was already in place. However, this draft never made it to the referendum that was planned for it because it would have disbanded the congress that suggested it (1). This is likely due to the fact that the members of the legislature had no desire to remove themselves from power, it goes against the goal of most politicians: reelection. When Yeltsin took it upon himself to establish a committee to draft a highly reformed constitution based on suggestions that he had written he too was acting in his own self interest. He had popular support for his desire to rework the constitution and was afraid of losing it if the newly reformed constitution was not markedly different from the previous one. Following the enactment of the constitution that he had a heavy hand in writing Yeltsin served as President of Russia from 1991-1999 (2). As the leader post determined the processes of drafting and writing the constitution were not very pluralistic, but I think we can take it a step further and say that not only was it not pluralistic, but it was clearly motivated by the desire of politicans to remain in power. Had Yeltsin and congress not been caught up in their own self interests they potentially could have drafted a more pluralistic constitution that would have been ratified by more than 31% of the Russian population.
ReplyDelete1: Danilenko, Gennedy M (1994), “The New Russian Constitution and International Law,” (451-452)
2: Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boris_Yeltsin
In general, the structural debate within construction of a constitution is between majoritarian and consensual, with the conclusion that most democracies in transition would benefit from instituting the consensual characteristic of a parliamentary system. The claim is that parliamentary system are more representative of the electorate and democratic in nature. Presidentialism, especially strong systems, can often be in danger of reflecting more authoritarian values, as well as operating more like an authoritarian government(Clark,1998).
ReplyDeleteTherefore, although the Russian constitution seems to be consensual in its structure, Russian preference for strong executive power, as well as the overwhelming influence of the president at the time, Yeltsin, in drafting the Constitution lead to the development of a hybrid ‘superpresidential’ political system. This ‘superpresidential’ system results in the operational negation of various consensual aspects of the system(Clark, 1998).
The level of presidential power granted by the Russian Constitution is unmatched compared to other parliamentary system; it is unmatched even compared to some pure presidential systems. The Russian Constitution gives the president extensive powers in both the executive and legislative branch, as well as essentially negating many of the parliamentary checks over the president. For example, if the Federation Council does not finish its entire impeachment process within three months, then the accusations are automatically considered dropped(Clark, 1998).
Thus, this ‘superpresidential’ structure that arose from the constitutional writing process is not terribly conducive to the development of a stable consensual democracy(Clark, 1998). So while the Constitution seems to install a consensual government, certain subtleties within the Constitution, instituted by an elite preference for a strong executive, push the governmental structure to reflect more majoritarian and authoritarian values.
Citations
Clark, W. (1998). Presidential Power and Democratic Stability under the Russian Constitution: A Comparative Analysis. Presidential Studies Quarterly, 28(3), 620-637.
The Russian Constitution is commonly referred to as, “Yeltsin’s Constitution,” and this statement is not entirely incorrect due to the strong influence of Yeltsin in writing this Constitution (Moore 1). With such a strong influence of an executive, it is impossible to not see the majoritarian undertones that were discussed last week. After doing further research, I learned that riots occurred in the October before the ratification of the Constitution and many assume that the November draft was “Yeltsin’s revenge,” (Moore 1) and granted him exorbitant powers. According to Moore, over the course of three years, broad interests were taken into account in the writing of the Constitution and that most of the powers given to the executive were present in previous drafts. Some of these powers present in the original include the right to issue decrees and declare states of war and emergencies, with almost no checks and balances in place (Moore 1). This explains the strong majoritarian undertones that we discussed last week that the Constitution. The Russian Constitution does represent a consensus of the ruling elite, but its ratification did not take into account the will of the people. Since it was drafted and approved by the ruling elite, it has not been contended and continues to be in place (Moore 2). Overall the Constitution was written “pluralistically,” it is just that the plurality was restricted to the politicians in power at the time of the drafting and ratification of the Russian Constitution.
ReplyDeleteCitations:
Moore, Rita. "The Path to the New Russian Constitution: A Comparison of Executive-Legislative Relations in the Major Drafts"