Mr Putin signed the Federal Law “On Amending the Federal Law ‘On General Principles for the Organisation of the Legislative (Representative) and Executive Bodies of State Power in the Russian Federation’s Regions’ and the Federal Law ‘On the Fundamental Guarantees of Electoral Rights and the Right to Participate in Referendums of Citizens of the Russian Federation”, adopted by the State Duma on December 3, 2004 and approved by the Federation Council on December 8, 2004.
The new federal law sets out the procedures for conferring upon the head official in each of the Russian regions (the head of the highest body of executive power in each region) the corresponding powers; the procedures and timeframe according to which the President must nominate a candidate for the head official of a region and the region’s legislative assembly must examine the candidacy, and also the grounds for dissolving a region’s legislative assembly.
The federal law sets out the grounds for and cases when the President can appoint an interim head official in a region and clarifies the grounds for temporarily removing or dismissing the head official of a region from office.