Putin chief of staff: 1993 constitution saves Russia’s ‘sovereignty and unity’

(Interfax – MOSCOW, September 26, 2013) President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff has credited Russia’s 1993 constitution with making it possible to “preserve the sovereignty and unity of Russia.”

“The constitution has made it possible to preserve the sovereignty and unity of Russia. It has made it possible to step back from a very dangerous point and put political processes back on a civilized path, something that even today we are sometimes short of,” Sergei Ivanov told a conference entitled “20 Years of the Russian Constitution.”

He credited the Russian constitution with incorporating some of the best Russian legal standards and making use of some of the world’s best legal experience.

“One probably can and should criticize the government as a whole for inadequate compliance with the constitution, for departing, or allegedly departing, from some of the constitutional provisions, but if we just compare what we had in the country in 93 and what we have now, we’ll see that quite a big and positive way has been traversed,” he said.

Ivanov said a lot of work would need to be done on the constitution in future. “But the choice of vector is absolutely correct, it seems to me,” he said.

[featured image of Sergei Ivanov is file photo, as is image of attack on legislative building]