Last updated on July 10th, 2020 at 09:20 am<\/p>\n
The results of a Russian referendum vote to approve changes to the Constitution of Russia have been announed. The Central Election Commission of Russia processed 100% of the votes and announced the preliminary results. According to the head of the commission, Ella Pamfilova, the preliminary data shows that the turnout was 67.97% of citizens with voting rights. Of these, 77.92% supported the amendments to the Constitution, 21.27% did not support them. After the results are finalized, amendments to the Constitution will enter into force and will be immediately published. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some of the amendments to the Constitution<\/a> touch upon purely political issues – the structure of government bodies and the nature of the influence of the Russian President on them. A lot has been reported regarding the so-called \u201cnullification\u201d of the number of presidential terms: according to the amendments, former presidents, including Vladimir Putin, will be able to be re-elected (but no more than twice). <\/p>\n\n\n\n But there are other changes – those concerning values. They relate to the family, marriage and the sovereignty of the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The new version of the Constitution proclaims\nthe obligation of the state not only to protect the family, motherhood,\nfatherhood and childhood (that already was part of the Constitution before),\nbut also to protect the \u201cinstitution of marriage as a union of a man and a\nwoman\u201d (Article 72). In addition, one of the new norms obliges the Government\nof the Russian Federation to pursue a unified policy in the country in the\nfield of \u201csupporting, strengthening and protecting the family, preserving\ntraditional family values\u201d (Article 114).<\/p>\n\n\n\n These changes predictably provoked angry reactions from the international<\/a> and Russian LGBT lobbies, who saw them as \u201chomophobic\u201d and (probably not without reason) decided that this would prevent them from seeking legalization of same-sex \u201cmarriage\u201d in Russia. Incidentally, shortly before the vote, YouTube, showing its usual disrespect for freedom of speech and belief these days, blocked an ad<\/a> that called for supporting the amendments and spoke about the right of every child to a natural family – to a father and mother. This was inevitably classified by the digital prophet of the new normalcy as \u201chomophobic\u201d in itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, another new norm of the\nConstitution will come into force, aimed at protecting the sovereignty of\nRussia. It reads: \u201cDecisions of inter-governmental bodies adopted on the basis\nof the provisions of international treaties of the Russian Federation in the\ninterpretation, contrary to the Constitution of the Russian Federation, shall\nnot be enforced in the Russian Federation\u201d (Article 79).<\/p>\n\n\n\n This provision can also be a serious tool for\nprotecting the natural family and parental rights. Thanks to this norm, Russia\nwill be able, provided it has enough political will for it, to more confidently\nreject attempts by international bodies to impose on the country the\nlegalization of same-sex unions and radical anti-family ideologies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It should be noted that the content of this\nrule, in itself, is not something new for the Russian legal system. The\nConstitution has already explicitly stated<\/a> that it \u201cshall have the supreme juridical\nforce\u201d in Russia (Article 15). And in 2015, the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation ruled<\/a>\nthat if the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights are contrary to the\nRussian Constitution, their execution may be refused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, another new norm speaks of Russia,\n“united by a thousand-year history, preserving the memory of our\nancestors, who transmitted to us ideals and faith in God, as well as the continuity\nof the Russian statehood.” After many decades of state atheism and open\ngodlessness, even such a brief and general mention of God in the fundamental\nlaw of the country looks symbolic as a kind of “return to the roots.”\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n While positively evaluating the above changes,\npro-family civil society organizations, however, are not completely satisfied\nwith the \u2018family\u2019 side of the new version of the Constitution. They believe\nthat more serious constitutional protection of the family and the rights of\nparents, as well as human life, is necessary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pavel Parfentiev, chairman of the Russian NGO For Family Rights<\/em>, says: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately, from a legal point of view, the new provisions are still not sufficient. We know from the experience of other countries that the mention of marriage between a man and a woman in the Constitution, unfortunately, does not exclude the legal recognition of other forms of same-sex unions, such as civil partnerships. The fundamental rights of parents, which, alas, are often violated today, have not received proper constitutional protection. The necessity to protect human life from the moment of conception until natural death is still not reflected in the Constitution. All this suggests that our work in this direction is far from being complete. We wouldn\u2019t stop here.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Pro-family advocates have noted that there was an attempt to introduce a dangerous provision into the Constitution declaring children \u201cthe asset of the Russian Federation\u201d, that is, in fact, the property of the state. Thanks to the serious efforts of the public, including For Family Rights<\/em>, this text was not included in the final version of the amendments. It was replaced by another declaration, according to which \u201cchildren are the most important priority of the state policy of Russia\u201d (Article 67.1). <\/p>\n\n\n\n The deputy speaker of the State Duma (lower Chamber of the Russian Parliament), Pyotr Tolstoy<\/a>, proposed his own version of this phrase, according to which \u201cfamily and children\u201d should be declared a priority of state policy. However, to the outrage of many, under technical pretexts this version was not even put to a vote in the Parliament. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Pro-family advocates also have doubts about\nthe provision, saying that the state establishes \u201cuniform legal foundations …\nfor the system of upbringing\u201d (Article 71) and \u201ccreates the conditions for the\nworthy upbringing of children in the family\u201d (Article 72). According to them,\nanti-family lobbyists may try to use these provisions to justify interference\nin the internal life of the family. They also criticize the norm according to\nwhich \u201cthe state, ensuring the priority of family upbringing, assumes the\nresponsibilities of parents in relation to children left without care\u201d (Article\n67.1).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, the amendments adopted give them serious hopes. Parfentiev notes: \u201cFor many years we have sought to include in the legislation the language on the protection of traditional family values. Now this is stated in the Constitution of Russia. \u201d<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n The booklet on amendments to the Constitution<\/a>,\npublished and distributed by the Russian Central Election Commission, gave the\nfirst place to the amendments related to family values. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is no coincidence. Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking to large families<\/a> on June 1, shortly before the vote, said: <\/p>\n\n\n\n