MOSCOW, June 2 (Reuters) - So many Russian members of parliament bunk off legislative sessions that a tough new law must be introduced to punish them, Russia's top consultative body said on Wednesday.
The Duma lower house of parliament was hit by a scandal in late May when a television channel critical of the Kremlin caught deputies pressing buttons to vote for their colleagues who did not bother to show up after lunch.
Within seconds, a screen with voting results lit up above the nearly empty Duma hall, showing that a sensitive new law on drunk driving had been passed by 449 votes.
Yet, only 88 deputies were present in the 450-seat chamber, way below the quorum of 226 votes needed to even hold a session.
Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party dominates the Duma lower house, which occupies a huge Soviet-era building opposite Red Square in central Moscow.
Russia’s Public Chamber, a consultative body of prominent public figures and academics, said in a statement that truant MPs should not escape unpunished.
"We consider it expedient to recommend the adoption of a law establishing tough responsibility of Federation Council (upper chamber) members and State Duma deputies for not attending plenary sessions," it said.
"We also consider it necessary to recommend to abolish the right of passing over one’s vote to someone else for voting if a deputy cannot take part in a plenary session for valid reasons."
President Dmitry Medvedev, elected by a landslide in 2008 after Putin personally endorsed him as successor, said in April he was baffled himself by the low attendance.
"I address all parties and the party holding ‘a controlling stake’," he said. "Something must be done. At the end of the day, it is an insult to those who voted for these parties."
"SPEECHLESS PARLIAMENT"
Critics say the problem runs deeper and reflects the nature of a tightly controlled assembly capable of little more than rubber-stamping Kremlin initiatives without much debate.
"You should not condemn those playing truant, but one should rather talk about this vicious system of state power in which a parliamentarian does not decide anything," Vladimir Ryzhkov, a prominent liberal opposition member, told Reuters.
Ryzhkov, a member of four previous legislatures, said the session hall of the Duma was always full in the 1990s, "and heated debates broke out, and each vote mattered".
"I remember we discussed the land code — a pivotal law to put in place land reform, back in the late 1990s," he said. "In the end, we failed to adopt it, lacking a single vote. It turned out that a deputy had popped out to the toilet to take a leak."
"But as Putin came to power, our parliament started losing power and influence," he said, referring to Putin’s presidency in 2000-2008. "And the session hall became almost empty, and rightly so — because the chamber is speechless."
