Andrei Safonov, "Society's activity always helped us survive"

The need to strengthen public control, establish interaction between government bodies and civil society, created an honest and open dialogue between them was much discussed during the past election campaigns. The theme of legislative regulation of the activities of the Public Chamber, the implementation of the principles of democracy was raised during the 2nd Congress of Pridnestrovian People's Forum, attended by the top leadership of the republic. At the same time, representatives of state authorities agreed to consolidate these social relations at the level of law. For this purpose, under the auspices of the Supreme Council's Committee on Public Associations, Sport, Information and Youth Policy, a group of parliamentarians developed legislations on the Public Chamber and On the Basics of Public Control. They were adopted in the first reading at today's plenary meeting of the legislature.

Despite the unambiguity of the necessity for legal regulation of public-state relations, a lively discussion has developed on the legislations. The tone was set by deputy Oleg Vasiliy, who believes that the republic does not need such a public body as the Public Chamber, that there are quite a few other mechanisms for implementing public control, including the activities of various levels of government. He was in this supported by his colleague Alexander Korshunov.

There were statements by parliamentarians that "Public Chamber is a crooked mirror of public opinion", that "we cannot be equal to Russia because it is too big", that "the new body will be an additional bureaucratic unit".

Proponents of the adoption of the legislations submitted for consideration urged opponents of the need for legislative regulation of the legal relations under discussion.

Paradoxically, the arguments of both supporters and opponents of adopting the legislations sounded so reasonably that out of 30 people who voted, 23 voted "for", with the necessary 22 votes.