Kremlin does not prepare amendments to Constitution

The Russian presidential staff is conducting no work to prepare amendments to the Constitution, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

"I can say that the presidential staff is conducting no such work [to draft amendments to the Constitution]," Peskov told the media. "Naturally, we regard this (a newspaper article by the Constitutional Court’s Chairman Valery Zorkin] as an expert’s personal viewpoint."

Peskov recalled that "Zorkin has long led the Constitutional Court and has vast experience, so it is his private opinion."

"No action is being taken at the presidential staff along these lines. No changes are being prepared," Peskov reiterated.

Earlier, Zorkin said in an article published by the daily Rossiiskaya Gazeta that the Russian Constitution contained certain flaws, but they could be corrected easily. Among the aspects that might arouse questions he mentioned what he described as insufficient balance between branches of power, unclear distribution of powers between the president and the government and also federal and local governing bodies.

"But such flaws are quite correctible by means of pinpoint amendments," Zorkin said.