In Moscow they said goodbye to the Chairman of the Supreme Court Vyacheslav Lebedev

In Moscow on Wednesday they said goodbye to the permanent chairman of the Supreme Court (SC) Vyacheslav Lebedev. The civil funeral service was held in the Hall of Columns of the House of Unions – congresses of judges used to gather there, where the most important issues of the development of the judicial system were discussed with the participation of the head of the Supreme Court. Now the mirrors in the foyer were covered with black cloth, and almost all the chairs were removed from the hall to free up the passage: those wishing to say goodbye to Vyacheslav Lebedev moved in a continuous stream. 12 buses were used to deliver judges (current and retired), as well as members of the Supreme Court, to the House of Unions.

The farewell ceremony was opened by President Vladimir Putin (who was probably one of the last politicians to personally meet with Vyacheslav Lebedev: the chairman of the Supreme Council visited the president with a report two weeks before his death). He entered the hall with a large bouquet of flowers, paused at the coffin, then crossed himself. Afterwards, Mr. Putin approached Mr. Lebedev’s daughter Inna Ruban and his granddaughter Anastasia Ruban to talk, and even hugged them goodbye.

Other Russian politicians also said goodbye to Vyacheslav Lebedev. At the ceremony, in particular, the Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko, the Speaker of the State Duma Vyacheslav Volodin, senators Alexey Pushkov and Andrey Klishas, ​​the first vice-speakers of the State Duma Ivan Melnikov and Alexander Zhukov, the Vice-Speaker of the Duma Anna Kuznetsova, the leader of the party “A Just Russia – For the truth” Sergei Mironov, head of the Duma faction “United Russia” Vladimir Vasiliev, leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov.

Also visiting the House of Unions on this day were Deputy Chairman of the Security Council Dmitry Medvedev, Chairman of the Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, head of Rostec Sergei Chemezov, Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (ICR) Alexander Bastrykin, Prosecutor General Igor Krasnov, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov , head of Sberbank German Gref, business ombudsman Boris Titov, director of the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the government Talia Khabrieva, State Duma deputy Vladislav Tretyak, TV presenter Vladimir Solovyov, editor-in-chief of Moskovsky Komsomolets Pavel Gusev. The farewell ceremony was attended by judges and staff of the Supreme Court, as well as chairmen of regional courts.

The ceremony did not involve speeches, but on the way out, many of those who came shared their emotions with journalists. They talked about how much Vyacheslav Lebedev, who led the Russian Armed Forces for almost 35 years, did to create modern domestic justice, and that it will be possible to truly understand the scale of this loss only with time.

“Having worked his way up from an ordinary judge to the chairman of the Supreme Court, and Vyacheslav Lebedev headed the Supreme Court for 35 years, he, of course, made a huge personal contribution to the establishment of Russia as a rule-of-law state and the creation of a new judicial system,” noted Valentina Matvienko. — I paid a lot of attention to her humanization. I was proud that the Russian judicial system, in comparison with other countries in the world, is the most accessible for citizens.”

Deputy General Director of the Agency for Strategic Initiatives and former press secretary of the Moscow City Court, Anna Usacheva, spoke about how much Vyacheslav Lebedev did for the openness of the judicial system: “He was an insightful reformer. Thanks to his visionary vision, the servants of Themis not only opened their doors to the media, they reconsidered their approach to working with the public. Thanks to Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, a federal law appeared regulating citizens’ access to information about the activities of courts, and Moscow became the first region where all these initiatives were implemented.” All this ultimately contributed to strengthening confidence in the decisions made by judges, Ms. Usacheva concluded. Well, athlete and deputy Vladislav Tretyak simply remembered the chairman of the Supreme Council as a “patriot with a capital P.”

Meanwhile, on the sidelines they were already discussing the most likely successor: among the potential candidates they named the Chairman of the Moscow City Court Mikhail Ptitsyn, the head of the Second Cassation Court Anatoly Bondar and even the Chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin. The real candidate will appear only after the High Qualification Board of Judges announces a competition to fill the vacant position, and this may take from one day to several weeks.

After the farewell was completed, Vyacheslav Lebedev’s body was taken to the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, where Patriarch Kirill personally served a memorial service for the deceased and spoke in memory of him, one of those present at the ceremony, closed to the media, told Kommersant. According to him, the patriarch noted, on the one hand, the firmness of Vyacheslav Lebedev’s convictions, and on the other, his gentleness in relations with people, which is only possible with the highest level of professionalism.

Vyacheslav Lebedev was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery to the sounds of a military orchestra, and a company of the honor guard fired a volley over his grave. By the end of the day, the Armed Forces team once again gathered at work to remember the leader.

However, the representatives of the regions who came to say goodbye to Vyacheslav Lebedev were not able to go home that day: an extraordinary meeting of the Council of Judges was scheduled for Thursday, February 29 (this is the body that manages the judicial community during breaks between congresses). As a source familiar with the agenda of the event told Kommersant, the first issue on it is perpetuating the memory of Vyacheslav Lebedev, but the list of issues for the meeting itself is quite lengthy. Kommersant’s interlocutor found it difficult to say what was the reason for such a hasty gathering of judicial leaders, however, he notes, such an emergency gathering in itself is an exceptional phenomenon.

Anastasia Kornya