One of the oldest judges of the Constitutional Court Gadis Gadzhiev will resign

In the near future there will be personnel changes in the Constitutional Court (CC). Sunday, August 27, marks the 70th anniversary of Gadis Gadzhiev, the oldest member of the Constitutional Court, except for the chairman Valery Zorkin (80 years old) and his deputy Sergey Mavrin (71 years old). Age restrictions have not been applied to the leadership of the Constitutional Court since 2012, while other judges automatically resign after 70 years of age.

“Gadzhiev did a lot as an interpreter of the Constitution, civil and tax legislation,” a doctor of law and adviser to the Constitutional Court in 1992-2008 told Vedomosti. Vladimir Kryazhkov. “He is one of those who strive for perfection. Already a judge, he defended his doctoral dissertation. Yes, he made some compromises, but for a long time, together with judge Anatoly Konov, he was the leader in dissenting opinions.” Gadzhiev “is a balanced, well-balanced person who is deeply aware of the Constitution, legislation, and foreign practice,” Kryazhkov added.

There are a few exceptions where a member of the CC continues to serve beyond the age limit for service. This, for example, is an incomplete composition of the Constitutional Court – if it has less than eight judges as a result of resignation. Hajiyev will not be affected by this example. From 2020, the CC can have a maximum of 11 judges. Recently, their number fluctuated, but fundamentally did not decrease much.

Since April 2022, Vladimir Yaroslavtsev, who served there since 1994, resigned. During his time as a judge, he repeatedly spoke with dissenting opinions and criticized the legal system of the Russian Federation. In June 2022, Andrei Bushev was appointed to replace him (he was an ad hoc judge of the ECtHR in the Yukos case). Then fresh blood appeared in the CS for the first time in 12 years.

The last replacement in the Constitutional Court took place in June 2023: PhD in Law Vladimir Sivitsky, who worked for many years in the secretariat of the Constitutional Court, replaced Judge Konstantin Aranovsky. He resigned at the end of September 2022, shortly before the Constitutional Court was supposed to check the treaties on the accession of new regions for constitutionality.

According to Vedomosti, this time the head of state (it is he who submits candidates for the approval of judges to the Federation Council) also does not plan to delay the process of appointing a judge. Already in the autumn session, the president may nominate a new judge to the upper house of parliament.

Among the candidates considered to replace Gadzhiev is Mikhail Lobov, a former Russian judge at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). The Strasbourg court suspended his work in connection with the withdrawal of the Russian Federation from the Council of Europe (CE) back in March 2022. Now his position has been abolished. Lobov has worked at the ECHR since January 2, 2022, before that he worked in the structures of the Council of Europe, including heading the department for policy and cooperation in the field of human rights, the media wrote that he was understandable both for the Russian Federation and for the West.

“In his time, he did a lot for the implementation of the ECtHR in Russia,” Dmitry Dedov, ex-representative of the Russian Federation in the Strasbourg court, said about Lobov in an interview with News.ru. – He did a lot for expert relations, i.e., for example, between the court and the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Justice, etc. <...> Lobov was one of those who methodically explained to the opponents of this institution that even if you don’t like the ECHR, if you think that there are too many cases against Russia, that the court is biased, etc., then you still shouldn’t isolate yourself.”