Constitutional Court of Russia

• 1. Introduction

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  The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation sits at a peculiar crossroads: it is the institution charged with protecting Russia's constitution, yet its own history is a record of suspensions, forced resignations, and a government-ordered relocation halfway across the country. Before the 25th of December 1989, the Soviet system did not recognize any need for a body that could strike down laws as unconstitutional. That changed when the USSR passed its Constitutional Control Act, and within two years Russia had set up its own court, separate and more powerful, carrying the title of Court rather than the Committee designation used at the Soviet level. What followed was two decades of rulings that shaped property rights, criminal procedure, and the boundaries of presidential power. The story of how this court works, who controls it, and what its decisions actually mean for ordinary Russians raises questions that go well beyond any single ruling.

• 2. Birth and First Crisis

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  In October 1991, the Fifth Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian SFSR elected 13 members to the new court, and it began functioning almost immediately. From November 1991 through October 1993, those judges issued rulings of real consequence. They struck down decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet as having been adopted beyond its legal authority, and they ended the practice of evicting people from their homes without a court order. More controversially, the court repeatedly found President Boris Yeltsin's decrees unconstitutional, which led critics to charge that the judges were simply taking the side of the Supreme Soviet in the broader power struggle of that era.

  On the 7th of October 1993, Yeltsin's decree suspended the court entirely, describing it as being "in deep crisis." By the 24th of December that year, a second presidential decree went further and repealed the Constitutional Court of the RSFSR Act itself. The court was not merely paused; its legal foundation was erased. A new act was adopted in July 1994, but the reconstituted court did not actually begin hearing cases until February 1995, because the Federation Council repeatedly refused to confirm the judges Yeltsin had nominated.

• 3. The Move to Saint Petersburg

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  Federation Council Chairman Sergei Mironov put forward the proposal to relocate the court from Moscow to Saint Petersburg in October 2005. The suggestion was more than administrative housekeeping. It involved the controversial allocation of land on Krestovsky Island for cottages for the judges, and it required moving the Russian State Historical Archive out of the former Senate and Synod Building, which the court would then occupy as its new headquarters.

  On the 5th of February 2007, the President signed Federal Constitutional Law No. 2-FKZ, formally changing the court's permanent location. A presidential decree issued on the 23rd of December 2007 set a tight window for the physical move: it had to be completed between the 1st of February and the 20th of May 2008. That deadline was met. The transfer was completed by 2008, placing Russia's highest constitutional authority in a historic Saint Petersburg complex rather than in the capital.

• 4. Judicial Independence Under Pressure

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  On the 31st of August 2009, Constitutional Court Judge Vladimir Yaroslavtsev gave an interview to the Spanish newspaper El Pais in which he stated that the presidential executive office and Russia's security services had undermined judicial independence. The court's response was unprecedented: in October, its judges passed a motion accusing Yaroslavtsev of "undermining the authority of the judiciary" in violation of the judicial code, then forced him to resign from the Council of Judges.

  Judge Anatoly Kononov, who had built a reputation for dissenting from the majority's decisions, then gave his own interview to the publication Sobesednik. He backed Yaroslavtsev and went further, arguing that there was no independent judiciary in Russia at all. He also criticized a recent amendment, signed by President Dmitry Medvedev on the 2nd of June 2009, under which the president of the court and deputy presidents would be proposed to parliament by the head of state rather than elected by the judges themselves, as had been the practice before. The court forced Kononov to step down on the 1st of January 2010, seven years ahead of the schedule set by his original term.

• 5. Powers and Limits

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  Any law, presidential decree, governmental decree, or law passed by a federal subject of Russia can be struck down by the Constitutional Court if the court finds it conflicts with the constitution. Once a ruling is issued, that law becomes unenforceable and government agencies are barred from applying it. The court can also review the constitutionality of an international treaty before the State Duma ratifies it.

  The court cannot act on its own initiative. A case must be submitted by one of a defined list of actors: the President, the government, the State Duma, the Federation Council, one-fifth of the deputies of either chamber, the Supreme Court, or a legislative body of a federal subject. Individual citizens may also bring a claim, but only when a specific law was applied in a case involving them and they believe it violated their rights. Federal judges may refer a question to the court when they doubt whether a law they are about to apply conforms to the constitution. Decisions require two-thirds of the judges to be in favor, and they are final; no appeal mechanism exists.

• 6. Decisions Without Hearings

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  When Article 47.1 was introduced into the governing federal constitutional law in 2010, it gave the court the ability to decide cases "without holding a hearing," meaning without the parties present and without public access. The practical effect has been substantial. By 2021, only 5 of the 55 decisions the court issued that year, specifically those numbered 30-P, 35-P, 38-P, 45-P, and 48-P, were adopted in open session. The remaining 50 were resolved behind closed doors.

  From 1995 through 2024, the court received more than 424,000 appeals. Its total output since it began operating has exceeded 46,000 resolutions, definitions, decisions, and conclusions. To manage that volume, the court regularly groups complaints from different applicants who raise the same legal question into a single combined case. When it rules on a previously examined norm, it typically refuses to reopen the question; a 2015 case involving Article 237 of the Criminal Procedure Code was a notable exception, where the court explicitly acknowledged the continued flow of complaints and agreed to revisit a norm it had already reviewed.

• 7. Real Consequences for Real People

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  A ruling of the Constitutional Court carries direct legal force superior to any federal law, and it opens specific procedural doors for the people who brought the original complaint. In 2013, the court partially struck down provisions of the Labor Code that allowed educational organizations to dismiss employees solely for having a criminal record, issuing Resolution No. 19-P on the 18th of July 2013. One of the named complainants, K. M. Shcherbina, then applied to the very same court that had previously rejected his case. That court reinstated him, paid him for his period of forced absence, and reimbursed part of his legal costs, all through the standard review process.

  Since 2020, the right to seek review extends beyond the original complainant. Any person whose case was decided using a law that the Constitutional Court later found unconstitutional may apply for reconsideration, even if they never brought a complaint themselves. There is one documented instance where the Supreme Court refused to follow a Constitutional Court ruling: in May 2021, the court found that the norms applied against citizen Irina Nikiforova contradicted the constitution and ordered her case reviewed. The Supreme Court denied that review and did not mention the Constitutional Court's ruling in its decision.

• 8. Composition and Structure

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  Eleven judges sit on the court today, with a quorum of eight required to function. Valery Zorkin, born in 1943 and educated at Moscow State University, holds the presidency. He first led the court from 1991 to 1993, the period that ended with Yeltsin's suspension decree, and has served again continuously since 2003. To qualify as a judge, a candidate must be a Russian citizen, at least 40 years old, hold a legal education, have practiced law for at least 15 years, and meet the standard of "recognized high qualification" as stated in the Constitutional Court Act.

  Judges serve indefinite terms but face age limits: 70 for regular judges, 76 for the Deputy President. The President of the court has no age limit at all. Since 1995, a separate post exists within the Presidential Administration: the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President to the Constitutional Court, whose role is to represent the head of state in proceedings and coordinate participation in specific cases. Mikhail Krotov held this position from November 2005 through January 2020, the longest single tenure in the post's history.