Estonia Defies Moscow, Claims Right to Veto

The parliament of the Soviet Baltic Republic of Estonia defied the Kremlin today and voted again to give itself the right to veto laws passed in Moscow.

Deputies in Estonia’s Supreme Soviet voted by 150 to 91 to stand by a decision they adopted overwhelmingly at a session Nov. 16, a journalist at Estonian television said.

That decision rejected changes to the Soviet constitution proposed by Moscow and reserved the Estonian parliament’s right to veto any laws passed by central authorities.

Kremlin leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev called the Nov. 16 move totally unacceptable and said it had “no judicial force.”

The television journalist, Andres Raid, said the latest vote followed a debate lasting more than three hours that was broadcast on radio throughout the republic.

‘Never Seen Such Things’

“It was unimaginable; we had never seen such things,” Raid said. “There was shouting and clapping and plenty of applause when the decision finally came, even here in the television studio.”

The earlier decision of the Estonian parliament in Tallinn was later declared unacceptable by the country’s highest state body, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow.

Gorbachev told Estonia’s president, Arnold Ruutel, that he should have warned the parliament of the consequences of such a decision.

Raid said members of parliament based today’s decision on the fact that last week’s session of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow had not specifically declared the Estonian stand illegal.