“Legend Judge”: Vyacheslav Lebedev died – MK

Vyacheslav Lebedev – whether anyone wants it or not – is a legend. He has been the permanent Chief Justice of the Supreme Court since 1989. Vyacheslav Mikhailovich headed the “main court” of the country back in the RSFSR. No one before him had been judge No. 1 for so long.

The secret of the judge’s phenomenal longevity can be explained not only by his professional qualities (and he went from being a district judge to being the author of many monographs and scientific articles), but also by his human qualities. Lebedev was highly intelligent and highly educated, with a subtle sense of humor. He was, so to speak, a decent humanist. But times do not choose, and one cannot judge the most important servant of Themis for those high-profile trials, as a result of which the Supreme Court did not take the side of a person, since the law itself was against it.

The MK columnist spoke with the Chairman of the Supreme Court many times and compiled his informal portrait. The reason, alas, is sad – on February 23, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich passed away.

There were rumors about Vyacheslav Lebedev when he was a simple district judge that he had high patrons. This was due to the fact that he made bold decisions. At that time, it could not have occurred to anyone that a judge could have an independent opinion. This is how he told me about one incident.

– At that time, a person was deprived of his Moscow registration six months after being absent from Moscow. And it was impossible to go back. Families collapsed, there was so much grief. And then Article 24 appeared, providing for punishment in the form of work without imprisonment. I was the first to free a person from prison using it. He was suitable – no judgement, good characteristics. And then the call came from the Chairman of the Moscow City Court, Lev Evgenievich Almazov. He asks: “How is it working? Would you like to stop by and tell me?” Well, how can you refuse? I think myself – I got it. I’m coming. He: “Tea or coffee?” Me: “No, nothing.” Lev Evgenievich: “Have a drink with me, please.” Lights a cigarette. Offers me “Belomor”. I smoked in a terrible way back then, but not Belomor, but Stolichnye. We are sitting. He suddenly speaks on a first-name basis: “You were the first to apply the article.” I answer: “What’s wrong? All parameters are suitable, everything is as written.” He again: “Yes. But you were the first to do it.” “So it’s not me, but the people’s assessors.” “Well, tell me, who asked you?” “No one asked.” “I’m being friendly towards you” (and he begins to list the names of high-ranking people). “Nobody asked!” So we sat with him. In parting, he said to me: “You are not an ordinary Mikhalych” (that’s what he called me).

There was one more case that turned out to be fateful in many ways for Lebedev. The head of one of the large research institutes was tried for speculation – he tried to sell a car that he bought on a business trip because he could not build a garage and protect it (and the car began to be dismantled on the street for parts).

“The most terrible article in those years,” says Lebedev. – And so I had to judge him. They took him into custody right in the courtroom. This article provides for up to 15 years of imprisonment. The prosecutor requested 8 years, taking into account mitigating circumstances (scientist, no criminal record, excellent worker, etc.). And I studied all the materials and came to the conclusion that he… is not guilty. It was a shock to everyone. Why did I decide this? The concept itself then meant “resale for profit,” that is, the goal should have been there from the very beginning. But initially this person had no intention, he did not want to resell anything. They called me on the carpet more than once after that. “You’re a boy, you shouldn’t work as a judge.” The prosecutor filed an appeal. There were so many authorities, there was so much noise! And the chairman of the Moscow City Court ultimately accepted my sentence as legal and did not overturn it. And this case became fateful not only for that director of the research institute, but also for me. After that they began to say that I was Voroshilov’s nephew.

And then Lebedev himself became deputy chairman of the Moscow City Court. He said that he didn’t want to go because “my court was renovated, comfortable, there was order all around, all the judges were decent. And in the Moscow City Court then you don’t understand what happened.”

When Vyacheslav Lebedev was proposed for the post of chief judge of the country, rumors began to circulate again about his alleged relationship with someone from the party “celestials”. And after this, these speculations even began to be legalized, which Lebedev recalled with indignation even many years later. But what is surprising is that he did not name the offender, whom, by the way, he could even sue for libel.

– One activist wrote a book, and on page 33 (I still remember its number) it literally says that I am the son-in-law of a Politburo member. I came home and said to my wife: “Come on, tell me what you’ve been hiding all these years, about your own father.” She responded: “I told you, stop working hard.” Now I remember all this with laughter, but then there was no time for jokes. My only father-in-law had died by that time; he was a captain of the second rank and had nothing to do with the Politburo. And soon I found myself at the Chairman of the Supreme Council Khasbulatov. He said something about the author of this book. Well, my answer is that I don’t want to hear about him. And I hold out page 33. He responded: “So everyone in the Supreme Council knows that you are his son-in-law.” I was terribly upset. Well, what kind of speculation is this? And then at one of the meetings, a high-ranking leader proposed to deprive me of the status of chairman of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR due to the fact that I was the son-in-law of a member of the Politburo (in those years there was an active struggle for democracy and against nepotism). I got up and left there. Did it really not occur to anyone to look at my file? It was in the Central Committee. All relatives are listed there. And here, based on rumors and gossip, such proposals are put forward! After some time, that same leader came to me. The secretary (a very good, wise woman) says – accept him. I said harshly: “I don’t want to see him, especially in my office.” She persuaded: “Well, for my sake, please make an exception once.” And so he comes in, head down. I apologized. And he did it in such a way that I didn’t expect from him. And immediately, of course, I forgot about everything. We started talking. He turned out to be a good guy.

In general, providence itself seemed to be leading him along the path. I will give a fact that proves this.

“He could have become chairman of the USSR Supreme Council in 1990,” says criminologist Danil Sergeev. – But the parliament preferred the candidacy of Evgeniy Smolentsev. Lebedev’s fate, if he had headed the Union Supreme Court, would have turned out differently – as a result, Smolentsev worked for only a year and lost everything. The Supreme Court of the RSFSR was transformed into the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and Lebedev became the head of the judiciary of the Russian Federation.

Much was changing in the country, and Lebedev, as soon as democracy began to allow this, tried to build a truly independent judiciary. He was open, he made decisions that in the Soviet years (as today) might have seemed unthinkable. But there was an air of freedom – and Vyacheslav Mikhailovich breathed it deeply.

Lebedev stood up for the newspaper at a time when the State Duma demanded to almost close MK. Deputies actively began to discuss the “ads” section on the pages of the newspaper. Everyone understood “where the wind was blowing” (the order to destroy the newspaper came from high-ranking officials who did not like critical articles about them). But only Lebedev was able to go “against the party line” and do it gracefully. He said something like this: “Law enforcement agencies should thank the newspaper for these advertisements. If there is something illegal there, then it can be revealed without leaving the spot – the telephone numbers are indicated there.”

Thanks to Lebedev, journalists were not only always invited to events, but also given the floor at round tables and conferences that took place in the Supreme Court. After all meetings of the Supreme Council Presidium, he always approached journalists, ready to answer any questions. He also humorously once suggested that I take a photograph standing between him and the President of the PRC Court Zhou Qian (he was visiting the Russian Federation at a court event), so that later he could show this photograph “in difficult situations” (after all, Russia and China occupy the same territory huge part of the planet). And he offered to interview both of them at once – him and Qian.

Several times, Vyacheslav Lebedev, seeing me in the corridors of the court, invited me to drink tea in his office, where I could ask him any question. When I complained that there were many minors in the pre-trial detention center, he immediately instructed his subordinates to study this issue. And teenagers began to be imprisoned in the rarest cases. Then the same story happened for women. I raised the issue of arrests more than once, and he always supported it. And resolutions of the Plenums on this topic were indeed issued. But the local judges seemed not to hear them, to which Lebedev said – they are independent, but decisions must be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court. And neither then nor now almost no one reaches the highest court to challenge the decision to take him into custody (it takes too long).

But we didn’t only talk about problems. Lebedev told stories from his past life as a judge. I collected them and wrote them down. Later, some of them were described in an article, which was about the saddest criminal case examined by Vyacheslav Mikhailovich (when he tried a man who asked not to fine him, but to put him in prison), the funniest (the case of a circus performer’s divorce) and other unusual processes.

Read the material: “Vyacheslav Lebedev, the head of the Supreme Court confirmed today, spoke about his most unusual cases”

He talked about how he loved poetry, and how in his youth he went to the monument where creative youth gathered to listen and read them. He talked about going to the bathhouse, where he stood in a long line and did not allow anyone to let him go ahead. There are many humane stories with which the life of Judge No. 1 was full. I remember I suggested writing a book about all this. And he replied that it was too early, but noticed that he already had some notes.

Thanks to Vyacheslav Mikhailovich, we (“MK”) were able to go down to the basement of the court and see how evidence on high-profile cases of the USSR was stored there. In general, under him the court was open as never before.

In 2016, he said for the first time that it is very bad when the executive branch interferes in the work of the judiciary. At that time, he could, forgive the expression, send one of the officials who tried to ask him for something. For this, Lebedev was disliked and even campaigns were organized in the media to discredit him. He experienced this painfully, but never allowed himself to publicly blame anyone. Lebedev had a rather difficult time coping with the car accident he got into in Africa. But he quickly came to his senses and everyone was surprised to see him again in the chair.

Recently, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich himself did not respond to any request that I sent to the Supreme Court addressed to the chairman. The answers came signed by the deputies. This could only happen if Lebedev was not feeling well. The last time I saw him at one of the events and approached him with a question, he seemed too tired to me. Those who today remind Lebedev of the deeds of the “anti-Soviet” during the years of the USSR, who nod to the adoption of decisions by the Supreme Court on the oldest human rights organizations, do not want or cannot understand one thing: Vyacheslav Mikhailovich did what he could, when it was possible, and that period of his life, seems to be the one he loves the most and was the one he was most proud of.