Friday, 27 June 1997
DELAY POSSIBLE IN UPPER HOUSE

by Lawrence Uzzell, Keston News Service

The Federation Council, upper house of the Russian parliament,
is likely to insist on changes to the controversial bill on
religious associations approved by the lower house on 23 June.
That is the view of SERGEI IVANENKO, who as staff specialist for
the Federation Council's Information and Analytical Directorate
is in charge of preparing a preliminary analysis of the
legislation for the Council's members. Up to now both supporters
and opponents of the Duma's proposal have predicted that it will
move swiftly through the upper house without any changes and will
reach PRESIDENT YELTSIN'S desk by early July - but Ivanenko
disagrees.

'I don't think the members of the Council will accept the bill
without any changes', Ivanenko told Keston News Service in a 27
June interview. He cautioned that it is hard to predict the
members' reactions, since none of them has read the bill yet. But
he said that he is sure that most of them will want an 'even
stricter version' ('bolyeye zhostky variant') of the legislation
than the Duma does. They will be especially interested, he said,
in strengthening the powers of the provincial governors to
register and otherwise regulate religious bodies. (The upper
house is dominated by the provincial governors to whom those
bureaucracies are subordinate.)

Ivanenko said that members may want to remove a provision in the
Duma bill authored by pro-freedom deputy VALERI BORSHCHOV, which
states that federal law is to prevail over provincial laws if
there are contradictions between them on issues of religious
freedom. Even though this provision only repeats a requirement
in the federal constitution, he said, the members of the upper
house 'won't like it on the emotional level'. Also, he observed,
in several provinces such as Tatarstan the constitution is
largely a dead letter in practice.

 Ivanenko said that the legislation will be considered next week
at a closed meeting of the Federation Council's Committee on
Science and Culture, probably on 1 or 2 July. It will then
probably come before a session of the full Council later in the
week. He cautioned that usually only a bare majority of members
come to such sessions; thus if only five or six vote against for
any reason(s), the measure will fail for lack of majority. If
changes are needed in order to win the support of a majority,
those changes must be negotiated by a joint commission of both
houses - and it is already too late to form such a committee
before the two-month summer recess. Therefore, he said, if there
are any disagreements at all between the two houses of parliament
there will be no chance of resolving them and reaching final
passage before the autumn. (END)