Dissenting opinion leader – Newspaper Kommersant No. 151 (7352) dated 08/19/2022

In Moscow on Thursday, they said goodbye to retired judge of the Constitutional Court (CC) Anatoly Kononov. The ceremony turned out to be intimate: it was mainly his relatives, associates in human rights activities who came to see the judge on his last journey (as a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, Mr. Kononov was a member of the human rights committee and was one of the authors of the law on the rehabilitation of the repressed) and retired colleagues. The current representatives of the judiciary ignored the event.

Anatoly Kononov, who died at the age of 76, was one of those who stood at the origins of constitutional justice in Russia: he was elected by the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR to the first composition of the Constitutional Court immediately after its establishment. Of his colleagues in the court, to whom Mr. Kononov gave almost 20 years of his life, only retired Constitutional Court judge Boris Ebzeev and another retired Constitutional Court judge Nikolai Bondar were seen in the farewell hall of the Central Clinical Hospital. According to Mr. Ebzeev, the former head of the Constitutional Court, Marat Baglai, also expressed a desire to come, but his state of health did not allow him to do so, like several other former colleagues of Anatoly Kononov. None of the acting judges of the Constitutional Court were present at the memorial service, and the only wreath, judging by the inscription, was from relatives.

A telegram of condolences, which noted the “significant personal contribution” of the deceased to strengthening the constitutional order of Russia, was signed by the head of the presidential administration, Anton Vaino.

Former chairman of the Human Rights Council Mikhail Fedotov admitted that he was surprised by the absence of a telegram or even a wreath from the current judges of the Constitutional Court. Recallthat in 2009 Anatoly Kononov voluntarily resigned, the reason for which, according to the official version, was his state of health. However, this happened shortly after the interview, in which the judge criticized the authorities and colleagues in the Constitutional Court.

Mr. Kononov was famous as the author of a record number of “dissenting opinions” (more than 50), which eventually turned out to be a whole book. (In 2020, amendments were adopted that prohibited judges of the Constitutional Court from publishing a dissenting opinion or referring to it publicly.)

“He did not hesitate to remain in the minority when he thought it was right,” said Elena Zhemkova, former executive director of Memorial (included by the Ministry of Justice in the register of foreign agents, and then liquidated by court decision).

“We called him “your honor,” and he really was our honor,” Mr. Fedotov recalled. “Not because he was a judge, he really was a man of conscience. He checked any situation for fairness or injustice, and that is why he wrote his “dissenting opinions.”

Lawyers are subject to professional deformation: they often see criminals in all people, said Mr. Ebzeev. But, according to him, Anatoly Kononov was not like that – on the contrary, he always saw a criminal as a person with inalienable dignity. And Yevgeny Savostyanov, who held the post of deputy head of the presidential administration for personnel matters in 1995-1998, whose official duties included, among other things, communication with the judges of the Constitutional Court, admitted that it was not always easy to communicate with Mr. Kononov. But on the other hand, he never tried to solve any of his mercantile issues through the administration.

Opponents of Anatoly Kononov in the Constitutional Court often reproached him for behaving like a human rights activist.

This was largely due to his negative position on the balance of private and public interests, which in recent Russian history has often been in favor of the state. And because of this, Mr. Kononov had to discuss with his colleagues practically all the most famous and resonant decisions of the Constitutional Court.

Judge Kononov published the first “dissenting opinion” in the case of Boris Yeltsin’s decrees to suspend the activities of the CPSU. He stated that the Constitutional Court actually evaded the analysis of the activities of the Communist Party and “ignored the numerous evidence of monstrous atrocities organized, secured and committed under the leadership of the CPSU.” Mr. Kononov, in contrast to the Constitutional Court, criticized the Kremlin’s decision to send troops to Chechnya in 1994, stressing that references to extreme necessity “cannot serve … as a justification for a military conflict.” In 2005, he disagreed with the abolition of direct gubernatorial elections, and in 2009 he condemned the practice of coordinating public events, which, in his opinion, leads to arbitrary bans on their holding.

Finally, Anatoly Kononov formulated one of his key conclusions in his “dissenting opinion” in the case of checking the constitutionality of Art. 113 of the Tax Code (on the basis of which taxes were collected from Yukos beyond the limitation period). “The formula about the balance of private and public interests, in our opinion, distorts the scale of constitutional values,” he wrote. rule of law.” The constitution does not speak of balance, but of the preference for humanitarian values, the judge insisted.

After cremation, the ashes of Anatoly Kononov will be buried at the Nikolsky cemetery, next to his parents.

Anastasia Kornya