How could the new power system work without Putin?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The amendments to the Constitution initiated by Vladimir Putin are being analyzed by many in terms of how it will help him personally manage political processes in the country after the expiration of his last presidential term. But how could the new system work without Putin?

“What motivates people? Passion. In any government there can be only rare souls capable of more worthy motives. Our main passions are ambition and self-interest. It is the duty of the wise legislator to harness these passions and subject them to the common good. Utopian societies built on the belief in the primordial altruism of man are doomed to failure. The quality of the Constitution depends on the correct understanding of the real state of affairs."

One of the founding fathers of the American state, Alexander Hamilton (and these words belong to him) was a cynical man and strongly opposed writing a constitution for specific leaders. Even such selfless patriots as gathered in Philadelphia in the sultry summer of 1787 for the Constitutional Convention. Unlike Jefferson, who was just an idealist.

Therefore, the American constitution is full of checks and balances, with the help of which some cynics and even crooks can effectively control others, so that they do not burrow and destroy the foundations of the state. Also, the creators of the American Constitution took the principle of guaranteeing minority rights as the most important. Fearing the "dictatorship of the crowd," they understood that as long as this principle persists, democracy will not suffer. At the same time, the word "democracy" is never used in the US Constitution.

The American political system is built on checks and balances with strict adherence to the principle of separation of powers * 1.

Legislators have the right to impeach the head of state, as well as approve all significant appointments in the executive branch (including ambassadors). The executive branch appoints justices, including the Supreme Court (constitutional), but Congress (Senate) approves the appointments. The president cannot remove the judges of the Supreme Court in any way: they either resign themselves, or die. The impeachment of a member of the Supreme Council is possible (also initiated by the House of Representatives, the removal must be approved by the Senate ⅔ votes). The first and only time a member of the Armed Forces was impeached in 1805. All this is seen as a guarantee of the independence of the Armed Forces, which can, on the basis of inconsistency with the constitution, repeal any law or regulation, including those issued at the level of individual states. It is impossible to overcome the "veto" of the Supreme Court, in contrast to the president's veto, and besides, it is the only supreme court in the country (in our practice, not everything can be appealed to the Constitutional Court).

The election of the head of the executive branch is indirect: in the end, the electors from the states vote (who are chosen by the population and the number of which is proportional to the population of the states, but the number of federal congressmen and senators is taken into account). This is a safeguard against crowd mistakes. At the same time, the electors are not always (in different states in different ways) are obliged to vote as the majority decided. However, the tradition is that, as a rule, they vote exactly after the "will of the people" - but of their state. As a result, the president of America was elected five times by a minority of voters, including Donald Trump.

The system, created almost 250 years ago, operates practically without interruptions. Whoever is the president, the system "mixes" his quirks and mistakes. She also digested the not-so-educated Reagan (at the same time, he became one of the most successful presidents after the Second World War). She practically did not notice Eisenhower, who fell into political hibernation during the second term of his rule. Displaced the presumptuous Nixon, who was also very successful, but played with the special services, starting to spy on competitors, and then lying to Congress.

It is hard to imagine how much of a firewood the impulsive and dull-witted Trump would have gotten away with if he got unlimited power. He would probably have closed all the newspapers and TV channels he disliked, expelled the “foreigners” from the country and would have banned the opposition in principle. However, he knows the limits of his "impulses", and the American courts (not even the Supreme Court) have already put him in his place several times. State governments with greater autonomy retain the ability to pursue their policies in important economic and social spheres (for example, in medicine). In general, local self-government in America plays a crucial role and independently solves a bunch of urgent issues for citizens. It, like the enormous powers of the states, guarantees the flexibility of the system.

Franklin Roosevelt made a serious attack on the foundations of the constitutional order. In response to the fact that the country's Supreme Court declared 11 of the most important laws of the New Deal's anti-crisis policy unconstitutional (suspecting a slide towards socialism), it tried to bring the Armed Forces under control. However, he did not even offer to remove judges from their jobs (this would be completely usurpation), but only tried to expand the composition of the Armed Forces, increasing the number of life-long judges from 9 to 14, adding five more, "our own and obedient". The whole society rebelled against this. He then lost a lot in popularity (if not for the war, he could have flown through the elections), including among the members of the Democratic Party, to which Roosevelt belonged. Bill did not pass the congress. And after Roosevelt's death, it was considered that stronger guarantees against the "imperial presidency" were needed than the tradition started by George Washington: in 1947, a constitutional amendment was adopted that limited the presidency to two terms - it does not matter whether in a row or not. Prior to that, the president simply, by tradition, did not run for a third term, Roosevelt violated it by being elected four times.

Since its adoption, the text of 34 articles of the US Constitution has not changed. True, the constitutional law itself was supplemented by interpretations of the Supreme Court. The founding fathers laid down a very complex mechanism for the adoption of amendments so that there was no temptation to rewrite the basic law all the time * 2. Since 1791 (when the Bill of Rights was passed in the form of 10 amendments, which fixed the basic individual rights of Americans), there have been approximately 11,700 attempts to introduce new amendments. However, only 33 of them (including the Bill of Rights) were approved by Congress and passed on to states for ratification. As a result, only 27 passed. The 27th amendment was adopted in 1992 * 3. Throughout history, only one amendment (18th) has been revised, which dealt with "Prohibition" in the 1920s.

The guarantee of the effectiveness of the American constitution is that neither it itself nor the amendments to it were written under specific leaders, but on the basis of general principles calculated for decades to come.

The Soviet constitutions seemed to have also escaped this flaw: the "Stalinist" constitution was quite suitable both for Khrushchev and, for the time being, for Brezhnev. But they did not avoid such a flaw as the declarative nature of a number of articles that never really worked, and were not considered as "working" by the authors. This played a cruel joke on the USSR. It was dissolved in strict accordance with Soviet constitutional law. On the other hand, the transfer of, for example, Crimea from the RSFSR to the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950s was legalized sloppily, which then gave rise to problems. The national-territorial division of the USSR was artificial, laying a number of "mines" for the unity of the state. Another "artificial" article about the leading and guiding role of the CPSU, written in under Brezhnev, turned out to be a legal empty shell, which was thrown into the trash heap as soon as a couple of thousands of demonstrations took to the streets of Moscow. And the “supreme legislative body”, the Supreme Council, was completely incapacitated.

During the crisis years of perestroika, the rulers embarked on constitutional fantasies (inventing a president and a vice president), which became the reason for an attempted coup d'etat and the collapse of the country. It would seem that it is necessary to learn a lesson: institutions are not created "from scratch", copying someone else's experience (American, French, Kazakh, etc.), they must mature. But it doesn’t seem to have been taken into account.

The 1993 Constitution was written both for a specific situation (after the shooting of the Supreme Soviet) and for a specific Boris Yeltsin. As soon as he was replaced by another person, the whole structure "began to play" with completely different colors, even before any amendments, easily and naturally adopted under President Medvedev (there were no obstacles in the way of easy acceptance).

Now we are talking about an even more significant change. And many proceed from the assumption that under Vladimir Putin as the main regulator of political processes, this will work, and in which case Putin will "look after". And if suddenly he cannot? If he suddenly would not be in the role of "political demiurge"? And imagine that the new president, like Roosevelt, enters into conflict with the Constitutional Court, tries to recall an unwanted judge, provoking a serious conflict in the elites (there will obviously be a good reason for that). And the head of the State Council at the same time takes the side of the Constitutional Court. And on the side of the prime minister - the majority in the Duma. And most of them are not United Russia. Or she, but she does not like the head of the State Council. And the deputy head of the Security Council will suddenly start his own political game. Do you remember that at one time General Alexander Lebed was on a position similar in influence (though he was the secretary of the Security Council)? And the deputy secretary of the Security Council was a certain Boris Berezovsky.

Or imagine that the absolute majority of one party disappears in the Duma, so that the bargaining around the approval of the cabinet of ministers will become much more complicated. Who will be the chief arbiter, how to allow such bargaining? What if the president and the head of the State Council come into conflict with each other, while the political situation makes it difficult for the president to simply dismiss the prime minister? What if he's the same weight as Primakov? Even between President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin, things were not always smooth. And in addition, all of a sudden, a certain more ambitious person than Valentina Ivanovna will appear in the Federation Council. And he will not want to "churn out" the candidates for the security officials proposed by the president, but which the head of the State Council will not like? And then in some region (and at least in Chechnya) will not like the candidacy of the regional prosecutor, who will now be approved by the Federation Council? And what if there is also a split within the State Council between supporters of the president and the head of the State Council or supporters of the deputy head of the Security Council? And add here "your own game" of the Duma speaker, which is not difficult to imagine even in the current personnel situation. A fundamentally new body, the State Council, is being introduced into the power structure. So far, neither the principles of its functioning, nor the powers are clearly spelled out at all. It may well come into conflict with both the presidential administration and the government, while there is a real threat that the State Council will duplicate the Federation Council.

In the new system, checks and balances not oriented towards a specific person are weakened. The principle of separation of powers is also sharply violated. At least in terms of the intervention of the executive branch in judicial affairs (for example, the right to initiate the removal of a member of the Constitutional Court on the basis of distrust of him). Also, the president receives, in fact, the right to "superveto", having the ability with the help of the Constitutional Court (which is not entirely from him, it turns out, is independent) to block any draft law even before the adoption stage. And it is not clear (in the absence of a federal law prescribed for the State Council, which will determine everything according to it), what will be the role of the Chairman of the State Council in this situation. So far, it looks like the very "artificial" institution that, without maturing in society and within the system, will take away from some other institutions their powers, which can weaken the stability of the system as a whole.

There is a huge space for political "trick", which will be the stronger, the stronger, God forbid, interpersonal contradictions between the future leaders of the country turn out to be. This creates the preconditions for the weakening of the strength of the foundations of the constitutional order in the event of acute internal crises. As it actually happened in the late USSR and early post-Soviet Russia in 1991–93. Especially in the absence, for whatever reason, of such an authoritative and indisputable arbiter, which Vladimir Putin remains today. In any case, increased requirements are imposed on the system being created in terms of the ability of the ruling elite to negotiate and find compromises, and not only to carry out the commands of the chief. Can she?

_