State Duma to review calls for dissolution

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Evgeniya Chaykovskaya – January 10, 2013)

An initiative for the State Duma’s dissolution accumulated more than 100,000 signatures, forcing the lower house of parliament to discuss it.

However, the deputies must consider the opinion of 60 million people who supported them during elections, said State Duma Deputy Speaker and Deputy Head of the United Russia faction Sergei Neverov.

“It was [Russian President] Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin’s idea, that any initiative that gathers more than 100,000 signatures will be examined by the State Duma if all the signatures are valid,” Neverov said.

“But I want to say that 60 million people voted for the current Duma, for all the member parties. And the opinion of 60 million is also important.”

Earlier at a press conference, Putin announced that all civil initiatives that attract more than 100,000 signatures will have to be discussed in the lower house of parliament, who promptly started developing a bill to facilitate this.

On Thursday, Novaya Gazeta’s initiative on the dissolution of the State Duma reached 100,000 signatures. They started collecting them after the deputies passed the widely criticized answer to the U.S. Magnitsky Act that included a ban on adoptions by Americans.

The paper has also gathered more than 100,000 signatures against that law and passed them on to the State Duma. An appropriate committee will review them next week.

Neverov added that a committee was developing norms for dealing with such initiatives.