Page 125 - DPOL202_COMPARATIVE_POLITICS_AND_GOVERNMENT_ENGLISH

Comparative Politics and Government

Notes parameters and main features of which we call a qualitatively new state of society can and must
be outlined. They can be outlined, because the chief orientations and tendencies of social change
have already emerged.”
In 1991 the post of the President of the Federation was created which was assumed by Boris
Yeltsin as a result of his victory in the elections. He was the first executive head in the Soviet
history to be elected by the popular vote. He set up a Constitutional Court having 19 judges
elected for 12 years on a non-renewable term. In October, 1991 he announced an economic
programme to establish a healthy mixed economy with a powerful private sector. In the following
month, a law was made that extended citizenship of the Russian Federation to all who lived in this
country at that time and to those living in other Soviet republics if they so requested. In December,
1991 Yeltsin created the Commonwealth of Independent States that included the Russian Federation
and other sovereign States which were previously the constituent units of the Soviet Union leaving
the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The RSFSR was the biggest constituent unit of the USSR. In April 1978 it adopted a new
Constitution. In June 1990 it passed a declaration of republican sovereignty by 544 votes
to 271 in its legislature and adopted the name of the Russian Federation.

On 12 June, 1991 Presidential election was held in which Yeltsin gained 57.3% of the votes by
virtue of which he became the President of the Federation for next five years. In November, 1992
a bankruptcy law was made that permitted the winding up of the indebted enterprises. The
system of central distribution of resources was established in 1993 and the work of overseeing
privatisation was entrusted to the State Committee on the Management of State Property. It began
with small and medium-sized enterprises. The Constitution of the Russian Federation was passed
by the legislature in 1992 and then ratified by the people in a referendum held on 12 December,
1993. The making and promulgation of the Constitution of the Russian Federation should be
hailed as the. first democratic experiment of the people who had so far been under the yoke of a
totalitarian system. Yeltsin would be regarded as the Pericles of Russia in time to come. Russia is
now a sovereign State as well as the most powerful member of a Confederation (Commonwealth
of Independent States) created in 1991.
Salient Features of the Constitution
The Constitution of this country, known as the Fundamental Law of the Russian Federation, has
these important features:
1. A Liberal Document: It establishes a popular system on the lines of other democratic countries
of the world. It sanctions ideological or political diversity that automatically recognises a
multi-party system. That is, now this country has no official ideology as was the case under
the earlier Constitutions. All public associations have been made equal in the eye of law. No
party or group can change this system by forcible means. Freedom of thought and expression
has been guaranteed and judiciary has been assured an independent position. The provisions
of the Constitution ensure free and fair periodic elections. It protects right to private property
with right of inheritance. Nationalisation of private property by the state for a public purpose
by the authority of law has been recognised. As a result of this, the system of private economy
has been introduced in the country that was not allowed under the erstwhile socialist system.
The Government has been made accountable to the legislature for its acts of commission and
omission. A long list of the human rights and civil freedoms of the citizens has been included
in the fundamental principles of the constitutional system.
2. Supremacy of the Constitution: The Constitution of Russia is written. It has 137 Articles.
Chapter 1 specifies fundamental principles of the constitutional order wherein the norms of
liberal constitutionalism may well be noted. Chapter 2 has a long list of human and civil

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