FEDERATION COUNCIL

Based on Nystén-Haarala, Soili: Russian Law in Transition: Law and Institutional Change. Helsinki: Aleksanteri Institute (Kikimora Publications), 2001.

The upper chamber of the Federal Assembly (Parliament), the Federation Council, represents the 89 "subjects" (republics and regions) of the Russian Federation. The Federation Council's jurisdiction covers primarily relations between the subjects and matters relating to national security, some official appointments and confirming any possible process of impeachment of the President launched by the Duma.

The membership of the Federation Council comprises two deputies from each of the subjects, one representing the legislative and one the executive authority of the subject. Many of the parties in the Duma criticised the role and structure of the upper chamber during the 1990s when the governors of the subjects represented the executive authority. They quite simply lacked the time to devote to the work of the Federation Council, which meant that power was in effect exercised by the bureaucracy. On the other hand, the presence of the governors in the upper chamber made it an odd mixture of executive and legislative authority.

After being elected President, Putin introduced an initiative to reform the role and structure of the chamber and succeeded in abandoning the automatic right to a seat for regional governors and presidents, which meant, among other things, that they were deprived of legal immunity, which thus made them more vulnerable to legal pressures from the federal centre.