Improving the Regulations of the PMR Supreme Council

Deputies discussed a number of important issues related to citizens' appeals to parliament in the course of today's meeting of the Commission on mandates, regulations and parliamentary ethics. According to paragraph 8 of Article 101 of the Regulations of the Supreme Council of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic, citizens are not included in the list of entities that have the right to apply for an official clarification of the norms of legislative acts. Uncertainty arose in this regard in understanding how to deal with citizens' appeals for an official clarification of the norms of legislative acts. This was the reason for the request of Deputy Anton Onufrienko on the interpretation of paragraph 8 of Article 101 of the Rules of the Supreme Council in conjunction with the Law of the PMR "On Appeals of Citizens and Legal Entities, as well as Public Associations". The commission came to the conclusion that there is no need to interpret the above norm of the law, in connection with which it was decided to give its clarification.

According to the clarification, any appeal of a citizen must be considered in a timely manner and on the merits in the manner prescribed by the Law of the PMR "On appeals of citizens and legal entities, as well as public associations".

Thus, in the event of a citizen’s appeal to the Supreme Council for clarification of the true meaning and content of the provisions of laws, normative legal acts of the Supreme Council, the Supreme Council is obliged to consider the applicants’ appeals in a timely and substantive manner and take decisions on them, based on the requirements of the PMR Law “On appeals of citizens and legal entities, as well as public associations”.

Deputies in the course of the meeting of the Commission considered the law-in-draft, the authors of which were the deputies Galina Antyufeeva, Grigory Dyachenko, Oleg Petrik and Stepan Stepanov. The draft law proposes to regulate the mechanism for holding joint meetings of parliamentary committees. It is proposed in particular to clarify the voting procedures for appointing committees as appropriate. It is proposed within the framework of the law-in-draft to change the procedure for forming the agenda of the plenary meeting of the Supreme Council.

The deputies of the commission considered amendments and additions to the Constitutional Law of the PMR "On the status of a deputy of the Supreme Council of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic". The law-in-draft is aimed at establishing a period of time during which officials of state authorities, local self-government, public associations and organizations must provide documents and information at the request of a deputy of the Supreme Council. The current legislation states that in case of such an appeal, officials provide the deputies with the documents and information they need without delay. There are cases in practice when it takes time to prepare a reasonable full answer. The authors of the initiative propose to legislate that, if additional preparation is necessary, a response to a deputy's appeal must be given no later than 15 working days from the date of receipt of the appeal (or in another period agreed with the deputy). According to the deputies, these measures are socially significant, because they can speed up the process of considering applications from citizens and legal entities.

The deputies supported both legislations and recommended them for consideration at one of the next plenary sessions.