Moscow, RUSSIA. The Russian non-government organization "For Human Rights"
requested that the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation declare the constitutional
referendum held in Chechnya in late March of this year illegal. Speaking
to PRIMA on April 16, the initiators of this move – State Duma deputy
Sergei Kovalev, and Lev Ponomarev and Yevgeny Ikhlov, leaders of the "For
Human Rights" group – said what arguments they intend to press in
court.
One of their main arguments against the referendum is that nobody has yet abolished
the Constitution of Chechnya adopted in 1992. They hold that on the basis of this
Constitution Aslan Maskhadov was elected president in 1996, and that the Russian
government has never challenged the validity of those elections. They observe
that the Supreme Court has never ruled the 1992 Constitution to be illegitimate
and therefore it is, in legal terms, still valid and functioning. Besides, Russian
legislation forbids to call referendums during a state of emergency. Though officially
there is no state of emergency in Chechnya, the human rights advocates are ready
to prove
that all "attributes" of state of emergency such as curfew, ban on holding meetings
are present in Chechnya. The Supreme Court has not yet fixed a date for hearing
this application.