Publication of an Overview on the Transition Era Parliament
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Member of the 20th of August Club
On 19 August 2013, the Chancellery of the Riigikogu and the National Library of Estonia presented a collection of articles on the 12th Supreme Soviet of the Estonian SSR that convened on 29 March 1990, continued as the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia from 8 May 1990, and decided to dismiss itself on 14 September 1992.
The collection is titled 12th Supreme Council of the Estonian SSR / Republic of Estonia 29.03.1990–29.09.1992. Statistics and overviews (2013). On this very day 22 years ago, the 46th extraordinary session of the Supreme Council began on Toompea, and a day later, on 20 August 1991, the decision on the independence of the Republic of Estonia was made. The book studies the Supreme Soviet elections, introduces the members, directing bodies and standing committees of the Supreme Soviet, as well as other committees and working groups that functioned during those two and a half years, and whose setting up was often dictated by the life itself, as well as the legal acts that regulated the work of the Supreme Soviet. The collection confirms convincingly that the Supreme Council also played a pioneering role in foreign relations. The most extensive part covers the legislative drafting work of the Supreme Council. During those 2.5 years, 155 legal acts were adopted, 114 of them after the restoration of national independence, so within less than a year. This overview of the activities of the last Supreme Council to have functioned in Estonia provides a better understanding of one of the most turbulent periods in Estonia’s history.