Valery Zorkin ran for a seventh term

At the 551st plenary meeting and the first in the current autumn session, the Federation Council (FC) dealt with personnel issues. As a result of the regional elections held on September 10, 26 senators will reconfirm their powers, and 24 new members of the upper house of parliament will be delegated to the upper house of parliament, including from the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, said Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matvienko.

“People will come with new experience, with fresh thoughts, new proposals for solving problems,” she noted, adding that 178 senators will sit in the upper house.

In addition, the council for the integration of reunified regions created under the Federation Council will begin work in the near future, Matvienko clarified. “It is intended to become the main parliamentary headquarters for the transition of new regions to Russian standards of living and government. And, of course, we proceed from the fact that he will work in constant close contact with the leadership and senators of the new entities,” said the chairman of the chamber.

At the meeting, the senators received certificates:

Vladimir Bulavin (from the government of the Ivanovo region);

Oleg Zemtsov (from the government of Khakassia);

Nadezhda Ilyina (from the Legislative Assembly of the Kemerovo region);

Natalya Kuvshinova (from the government of the Altai Territory);

Vladimir Pushkarev (from the government of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug);

Alexander Rolik (from the government of Primorsky Krai);

Vadim Sokolov (from the government of the Oryol region);

Alexander Voloshin (from the People’s Council of the DPR).

Natalya Kuvshinova and Alexander Rolik took the seats in the Federation Council of famous senators Alexander Karlin and Svetlana Goryacheva, respectively. At the next meeting of the upper house of parliament, senators’ certificates will be received by the representative of the government of the Omsk region Ivan Evstifeev, the Kherson regional Duma Igor Kastyukevich, the legislative assembly of the Vladimir region Vladimir Kiselev, the Arkhangelsk regional assembly of deputies Alexander Novikov, the government of the Zaporozhye region Dmitry Rogozin and the government of the Smolensk region Ruslan Smashnev.

“Greetings, Dmitry Olegovich [Рогозин]. Vladimir Ivanovich Bulavin. What kind of blocks come to us, such, you know, mastodons, which, of course, will be very useful in the work of the Federation Council,” Matvienko said.

In addition, the senators replaced one of the vice chairmen. Having held this post for almost two terms, 73-year-old Galina Karelova was appointed first deputy chairman of the committee on federal structure, regional policy, local self-government and Northern Affairs. “Galina Nikolaevna and I met and discussed how we would proceed. It was her proposal, she said: it is necessary to change, so that new faces appear, to rejuvenate the composition of the Federation Council and governing bodies,” Matvienko said. Instead of Karelova, Inna Svyatenko, a representative of the Moscow City Duma in the upper house of parliament, was appointed deputy chairman of the Federation Council.

Having dealt with internal personnel issues, the senators considered the proposals of Russian President Vladimir Putin to reappoint Valery Zorkin as chairman of the Constitutional Court (CC) and appoint Mikhail Lobov, a former judge of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR), to the post of judge of the Constitutional Court. The Federation Council unanimously approved both issues. Zorkin assured the senators that he would find “every strength and opportunity” so that they “would not regret their decision.” The new term will be 80-year-old Zorkin’s seventh at the head of the Constitutional Court. Mikhail Lobov took the place of Gadis Gadzhiev, who retired on September 1 due to reaching the age limit (70 years), and now the Constitutional Court again has 11 judges. The age limit does not apply to the chairman of the Constitutional Court.

“Judges of the Constitutional Court have known Mikhail Borisovich Lobov for a very long time, since the end of the last century, when he began working in the Council of Europe [Совете Европы]. He had unique opportunities to prove himself in this field, defending the interests of the Russian Federation,” Zorkin said about Lobov.

The latter was appointed as an ECHR judge from Russia in September 2021 and joined the court on January 2, 2022. In March 2022, the Strasbourg court suspended his activities in connection with the withdrawal of the Russian Federation from the Council of Europe. “Despite our withdrawal from the Council of Europe, the continuity of the legal system is fully preserved. And, it seems to me, this experience, what we have developed over 25 years, needs to be analyzed, sometimes re-evaluated, adjusted for today’s conditions, and continued to be used constructively and rationally,” Lobov said.

At a meeting of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building a few hours earlier, he said that Russia had implemented the ECHR rulings, which entered into force until March 15, 2022. According to them, the applicants were paid 4.5 million euros in ruble equivalent.