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As part of the ongoing conversation about civil society in Russia, on July 1, 2005, President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill authorizing the creation of the Public Chamber, a 126-member body designed to provide oversight of the Duma. The stated purpose of the new body is to provide oversight of governmental bodies and the executive branch, offering expertise in relation to new legislation, and “organizing cooperation between the citizenry and federal organs of state power.” The Chamber can issue nonbinding advice to the government on domestic policy and legislation and request investigations into suspected wrongdoing.
The members of the Chamber were selected in three rounds, the first group was appointed by the president, the second group - made up of members of national NGOs - was selected by the first, and the third group, selected from members of regional NGOs, was chosen by the first two groups. The final members were named December 23 and the Chamber met for the first time January 22. At the meeting President Putin told the members that they would face an uphill battle trying to prove their worth.
Few analysts think that the Chamber will be anything more than a rubber stamp for the Kremlin's policies, with scholars from the Moscow Carnegie Center calling it "a very useful, thoroughly domesticated, element of civil society in bureaucratic form" and journalists declaring that only 4 of the Chamber's members are completely free of the Kremlin's influence.
The Chamber, which must meet twice a year and issue an annual report on the state of civil society, will tackle the repercussions of the controversial NGO law and ongoing efforts to combat ethnic hatred in its first session.
Members of the Public Chamber
Commissions of the Public Chamber
http://www.oprf.ru
Related articles
Francesca Mereu and Kevin O'Flynn, Chamber Calls for Ban on Some Books, The Moscow Times (January 31, 2006)
Anatoly Medetsky, Putin Gives Public Chamber a Warning, The Moscow Times (January 23, 2006)
Putin Warns Against Political Bias, BBC Monitoring (January 22, 2006)
Anatoly Medetsky, Four Seen as Critical Voices in Chamber, The Moscow Times (January 20, 2006)
Dmitry Babich, Oversight and Expertise, Russia Profile (August 16, 2005)
last updated January 31, 2006
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