The next day, December 26, 1991, the Council of Republics, the upper chamber of the Union's Supreme Soviet, issued a formal Declaration recognizing that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist as a state and subject of international law, and voted both itself and the Soviet Union out of existence (the other chamber of the Supreme Soviet, the Council of the Union, had been unable to work since December 12, 1991, when the recall of the Russian deputies left it without a quorum)