The State Duma Committee for control over reliability of information about incomes and property of deputies decided to conduct a check over “the observance by A Just Russia deputy Gennady Gudkov of the restrictions and bans, which are envisaged in the legislation.” The under-fire lawmaker is suspected of combining his post with commercial activities. Gudkov’s colleagues gave only five days instead of 60 days set in the law for checking the circumstances of the case.
During the debates over the materials, which were produced in the Gudkov case, one of members of the committee Tatiana Moskalenko from A Just Russia insisted on the check with a more complete package of documents and setting the deadline for the check until November 5, the Novye Izvestia daily reported. However, Moskalenko’s initiative was not supported by other members of the committee. “No deadlines will result in a groundless sooner date for putting up this issue for voting and will not make it possible to check the case thoroughly, as the deputies would like to do it,” Moskalenko said.
The committee will hold its next meeting on September 10. Representatives of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the Investigation Committee are expected to be invited for the meeting for more detailed debates on the issue. The deputies received the materials of the check on 190 pages. And not all deputies had the time to study them fully, particularly over this fact a repeated meeting of the committee was scheduled.
The newspaper recalled that at the end of the previous week Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika has made a request to the State Duma, asking to consider a probable early termination of Gennady Gudkov’s deputy powers. The investigation bodies accuse the lawmaker of commercial activities that contradicts the law on the status of deputy. Presumably the deprivation of deputy mandate will be put up for voting at a plenary meeting on September 12. “All points to the fact and we are aware about it that my deprivation of deputy mandate may be put up for voting at a plenary meeting on September 12,” deputy Gudkov said at the committee meeting. However, chairman of the committee Vladimir Vasilyev rejected this news report, noting that he does not know where Gudkov got this information.
The Nezavisimaya Gazeta daily noted that the Investigation Committee “did not find anything” that would be related to the sixth State Duma that is a period from December 20, 2011 until the present times. Meanwhile, head of the State Duma Committee Vladimir Vasilyev warned at the very beginning of the meeting of the committee that Gudkov’s possible previous offences cannot be considered. The fact that deputy Gudkov can be accused only of some conflict of interests from the whole scope of accusations was officially confirmed on Wednesday. This is his letter to the Moscow Prosecutor’s Office with the request to guarantee an unbiased investigation of the case, in which one of his family security agencies is involved. The problem for United Russia was that even for an obvious conflict of interests the law on the status of deputy does not envision any opportunity to strip the deputy of his mandate.
Another intrigue over a possible decision of the committee popped up a day before, the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reported. United Russia deputy Isayev warned to move in a bill on the ban of family ties in the state authorities in the State Duma. However, LDPR leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky also came automatically under the effect of this bill, as his son Igor is also a deputy and his party is now an ally of United Russia.