The Legislative Assembly of Leningrad Oblast is a permanent institution of legislative and representative state power in the region. Its rights and duties have been fixed in the Charter of Leningrad region (article 31).
The Legislative Assembly of Leningrad Oblast consists now of 50 members. Elections to the Assembly are held every five years. There were only 25 members during first term of the Assembly, started in March 1994. Since May 2003, the chairman of the Legislative Assembly has been Mr. Kirill Polyakov - a rather young politician, who came to politics from the agricultural business. Each deputy of the Legislative Assembly has one assistant, whose salary is paid by the regional budget, each deputy has access to legal expertise of group of lawyers that works in close co-operation with the Legislative Assembly.
The majority of the Legislative Assembly deputies has been elected from the following districts: Gatchina district (elects 6 deputies), Vyborg district (elects 6 deputies) and Vsevolozsk district (elects 5 deputies).
The Legislative Assembly itself defines structure of its permanent commissions and ad hoc units. At present there are 13 permanent commissions in the Assembly:
There are 5-13 deputies of the Legislative assembly in each permanent commission.
During the first two terms the Assembly did not have factions of political parties in its structure. Only in April 2002 the New Regulations of the Assembly allowed to have political factions. In June 2002 first two factions were established: "the United Russia" and "Dialog". The last non-party faction in the Assembly ("Public Accord" - Obschestvennoje Soglasie) was established in October 2002 but ceased to exist in August 2004. Another two factions: Dialog and Leningrad have been also dismantled in 2004. In the same year the Assembly saw the birth of two more factions: the Liberal-Democratic party of Russia and Socialist United Party of Russia; the latter, however, was dismantled by the end of the end of 2004. Currently there are three factions at the Legislative Assembly, all representing key federal political parties:
The faction of the The Socialist United Party of Russia has existed from the summer 2004 till December 2004, when it was dismantled.
The most important document for organization of power in Leningrad Oblast, which was adopted by the Assembly, was the Charter of the Leningrad Oblast. It was approved by the Assembly in October 1994 and reviewed on June 3, 1997. The Charter defines all key elements of power structure in the region: executive power (governor and government with ministries and committees), legislative power (the Legislative Assembly), municipal powers (municipalities), and the court system in the region.
The Legislative Assembly's representative in the Upper House of the Russian Parliament - the Council of Federation - since September 2003 is Mr. Grigory Naginsky, businessman and former member of the Legislative Assembly. The Legislative Assembly actively cooperates with regional parliaments of foreign countries, including Germany, Finland, Italy, Japan, etc.
In practice, the present Legislative Assembly of the Leningrad Oblast is a consultative institution, which approves and implements the policy of the Governor Valery Serdyukov and the Government of the Leningrad Oblast. It is also true in the case of such "sensitive" issues as the discussion on the formation of the region's budget.
On the other hand, the Legislative Assembly is managing the Chamber of Control and Accounting of the Leningrad Oblast, whose mission is to observe financial activities of the regional authorities, first of all, the Government of the Leningrad Oblast and municipal authorities. There are about 30 employees at the Chamber. The Chamber reports to the Legislative Assembly on the results of its control missions. The consolidated budget of the Leningrad Oblast in 2003 was 18,2 billion rubles (about 500 million euros).
In 2004 the parameters of the Leningrad Oblast's budget were be following:
Revenues - RUR 14,333 billion (Euro 387,4 million)
Expenses - RUR 15,819 billion (Euro 427,5 million)
Deficit - RUR 1,486 million (Euro 40,2 million).