Forms of Work

Salus populi suprema lex esto
Let the welfare of the people be the supreme law

The Chamber uses various forms of work: public hearings, roundtable meetings, and visiting sessions. The Chamber holds over 100 public events a year. The Chamber holds four to five plenary meetings a year, which are attended by all the Chamber members. They discuss the most important issues pertaining to the development of the country and civil society.
The first, organizational, plenary meeting of a new convocation of the Chamber elects Secretary of the Civic Chamber, his deputies, and working bodies – commissions and inter-commission working groups. Every December, plenary meetings hear and adopt reports of the Civic Chamber on the state of civil society in the Russian Federation.
The Council of the Civic Chamber, consisting of the chairmen of the commissions, at its regular meetings makes decisions on major issues of the Chamber’s work.
Members of the Civic Chamber conduct hotlines and online conferences for citizens on a variety of subjects: the rights of conscripts, elections to bodies of power, Common National Examination, child abuse, health care, etc. The citizens of Russia contact members of the Civic Chamber with questions and requests by phone or E-mail.
Visiting sessions of the Civic Chamber commissions can be planned or emergency, when it is necessary to assess the situation on site. This happened, for example, after the conflict in South Ossetia.

 

Dialogue with the Authorities
Primus inter pares
The first among equals

Members of the Civic Chamber meet regularly with the President of Russia. They are members of several governmental or presidential councils which have the status of advisory bodies and where agreements are reached and joint positions of the authorities and society are worked out on many important issues.
Russia’s ex-president Vladimir Putin opened the first plenary meeting of the Civic Chamber in 2006, and two years later, in 2008, several members of the Chamber were invited to the inauguration ceremony of incumbent President Dmitry Medvedev;
On May 16, 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with members of the Civic Chamber. The meeting discussed social issues (the affordability of housing, education and health care) and the positioning of Russian culture and science in the world;
On March 19, 2008, the Council of the Civic Chamber discussed with President Dmitry Medvedev the problem of corruption and ways to switch the Russian economy to the innovation track;
On September 19, 2008, prominent representatives of public organizations and creative unions gathered in the St. George Hall of the Moscow Kremlin. The meeting, held shortly after the operation to coerce Georgia to peace, discussed the international situation and the participation of citizens in public diplomacy events;
On June 17, 2009, members of the Civic Chamber and the Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society Institutions discussed ways to improve legislation on non-commercial organizations.