This is the struggle between two visions of the
Russian Constitutional Court functions.¹
—Oleg Utkin, member of the Russian parliament

In 2001, Russian president Vladimir Putin continued with the reform of Russia’s mechanisms of governance. While most of his judicial-reform proposals seek to enhance the accountability of Russian courts, several changes to the Russian Constitutional Court statute clarify the procedures for carrying out the Court’s decisions. These “implementation” amendments come under the aegis of Putin’s “dictatorship of law,” all with the purpose of ensuring the enforcement of federal laws in the Russian regions. Unlike Boris Yeltsin, the second Russian president has no wish to tolerate regional violations of federal laws, clearly wanting to secure the regions’ overall compliance and thus the Federation’s integrity. The aim of these amendments was to oblige the regional authorities to repeal or alter legislation found unconstitutional and to provide sanctions for the failure to implement Russian Constitutional Court decisions.

Legally, these amendments represent an attempt to accommodate Constitutional Court rulings to the civil-law system, which does not recognize “judgemade” law. Whereas in common-law countries no government body will apply a legal rule declared unconstitutional by the courts, civil-law systems lack this automatic compliance with court declarations of unconstitutionality. Moreover, because of Russia’s totalitarian legacy, much government business is done via executive decrees and regulations, which technically remain on the books even after they have been found unconstitutional. This is because such regulations can be repealed only by the agencies that issued them; thus the bureaucracy continues to apply “unconstitutional” norms until federal or regional executive bodies rescind the offending rules. Russia’s federal structure also complicates the implementation of Constitutional Court decisions, since some regions contest their applicability to regional laws. The 2001 amendments to the Constitutional Court statute specify the institutions responsible for repealing unconstitutional norms, the timeline for responding to Court rulings, and the penalties for the failure to implement them in a timely fashion.

Politically, improving the implementation of Constitutional Court decisions will grant federal authorities more control over regional leaders and, at the same time, make the Russian government more responsive to Constitutional Court rulings. This could lead to a more powerful federal Constitutional Court as it defines Russia’s constitutional order. But that prospect is not clear cut. In the future, the government’s responsiveness may turn out to be a mere façade for initiating an additional phase of extrajudicial confirmation of the validity of the Court’s decisions, thus undermining their finality if only implicitly. In other words, the emphasis on responsiveness may produce an expectation that the Court’s judgments do not carry any weight by themselves and that they acquire legal force only after the response of federal and regional authorities.

The process of adopting these implementation amendments was complicated and, for the Court, perilous. What became apparent was a struggle between differing visions of Constitutional Court power. On the one hand, the presidential administration rushed its judicial-reform package through the Russian parliament, partly in response to the justices’ complaints about chronic noncompliance with their decisions, and partly to strengthen the Court itself. On the other hand, the amendments to the Constitutional Court statute also provided an opening for the opponents of a strong Court, who then proceeded to introduce two amendments limiting its power. These amendments were almost approved by the Duma and were dropped only after active resistance by the Court justices. The story of the 2001 amendments to the law on the Constitutional Court reveals the threats to the growth of judicial power in Russia and the ways in which, so far, these threats have been neutralized.

This article first examines the political context in which President Putin introduced his initiatives to improve implementation of Constitutional Court decisions. It then explores the process whereby these proposals were worked out by the presidential administration and judges. Next, I examine the legislative debates over these amendments in the Russian parliament, and, finally, I conclude with an assessment of the legislative changes and their impact on the future of Russia’s constitutional judiciary.

The context: Regional noncompliance

Regional resistance to decisions by the Constitutional Court has been a problem since the beginning of the Court’s work in 1992. The regional authorities either ignored these decisions or only partially changed the invalidated laws. Moreover, numerous regional authorities chose not to amend those of their laws containing legal norms analogous to the ones found unconstitutional. The first attempt to pass a law facilitating the implementation of the Court’s decisions was made in April 1992 after the Tatarstan Republic failed to comply with a Court decision regarding a referendum. Mikhail Mitiukov, the chairman of the Committee on the Legislation of the Russian Supreme Soviet, sponsored this bill, which passed at first reading on April 1, 1992. After that, the bill was sent to Russia’s constituent entities where it was subsequently buried because neither federal nor regional elites had any interest in strengthening the unknown institution of constitutional review.

The next, unsuccessful attempt to deal with implementation came during the drafting of the 1997 federal law on the execution of court decisions in general. The Court opposed including norms on the enforcement of its rulings in this particular law, arguing that Constitutional Court decisions were different in kind from decisions of other courts and— like law per se—mandatory by themselves, without any actions by the court bailiffs.

By mid-2000, in the context of Putin’s “dictatorship of law,” the Constitutional Court issued two rulings invalidating the “sovereignty” clauses of numerous regional constitutions.² The affected regions openly ignored these rulings, and one of them (Bashkortostan) even refused to publish the rulings, because—it was alleged—they would spoil the fall 2000 celebration of the ten-year anniversary of their “sovereign” status within Russia. This regional resistance coupled with certain federal bodies’ own noncompliance with Constitutional Court decisions, generated outrage among the justices. Although the Court’s official position is that it has no authority to enforce its decisions, the persistent noncompliance with and frequent delays in the implementation of its decisions by federal and regional authorities alike worried the justices, in particular, about the weakening of the Court’s public image. In September 2000, Mitiukov, by that time the presidential representative at the Constitutional Court, called for a forum to discuss problems of executing the Court’s decisions. President Putin supported holding a conference in early 2001, as this would reinforce his judicial-reform agenda.

In addition, showing strong support for obedience to Court decisions would shift public attention away from what emerged as Putin’s badly handled attempt to change the rules on the tenure of Constitutional Court judges. In September 2000, the president introduced amendments to extend the term of Constitutional Court justices from 12 to 15 years and to remove the mandatory retirement age of 70. This was done so that the current Constitutional Court chairman Marat Baglai and his deputy Tamara Morshchakova could stay on the bench, both of whom were due to retire in March 2001 after reaching retirement age. Some observers speculated that Putin sponsored these amendments in response to threats from regional elites to launch constitutional litigation over Putin’s laws strengthening federal control over the regions. By extending judicial tenure, Putin hoped to gain the Court’s support in his far-reaching reforms of Russia’s governance.³

Because of the rush, however, the presidential administration did not discuss these “tenure” amendments with all of the Court justices, which offended several of them.⁴ This intensified the divisions among the justices well into 2002 and created more confusion over the exact terms of their tenure. In the end, left-wing legislators introduced their own amendment that extended only Baglai’s tenure, which meant retirement for his deputy Morshchakova. The presidential administration agreed with this amendment, and Putin signed it into law in February 2001. The rush, secrecy, and personal aspect of these presidential amendments undermined the impartial image of the Constitutional Court.

The proposals: The presidential administration and the judges

Preparations for the conference, which Mikhail Mituikov had called for in September of 2000, on the implementation of Constitutional Court decisions, took two forms. Mitiukov and his staff informed regional scholars, judges, and politicians of the conference, issued a call for papers, and organized the conference. Meanwhile, Dmitri Kozak, the deputy head of the presidential administration, led a large working group in charge of judicial reform in general, and this group drafted proposals to improve the mechanism of implementing Court decisions. Kozak’s group, as it was called, included representatives of the federal judiciary, general procuracy, and the Ministry of Justice. The justices formally did not participate in drafting these proposals. Kozak presented his proposals to the Court’s judges at a meeting with Putin on February 15, 2001. According to Kozak, the major problem in implementing Constitutional Court decisions was that no one complied with the Court rulings until the norms declared unconstitutional by the Court had been amended or rescinded. Although the current law demanded “immediate” implementation of decisions, chief among Kozak’s proposals was the recommendation that clearly set implementation deadlines would improve compliance with the Court’s judgments. The Court members approved of all of the Kozak group's proposals and called for the establishment of sanctions against federal officials issuing acts contradictory to Court rulings and making such acts and contracts void.⁵

Various top federal and regional officials attended the conference held in late March 2001. The presidential administration worked hard to attract regional representatives, since the Kremlin most actively blamed the regional authorities for not carrying out the Court’s decisions. Another scapegoat was the State Duma that had delayed the passage of the laws ordered by the Court. This conference created a working group that elaborated on and publicized numerous recommendations using Kozak’s proposals to improve the effectiveness of the Court decisions.⁶

The majority of these proposals dealt with establishing a new mechanism, under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice, for the enforcement of Court decisions in the subjects of the Russian Federation. According to these proposals, regional governors would have one month to amend their unconstitutional decrees, and regional legislatures would have up to six months to revise regional laws found unconstitutional. Analogous legal acts of other regional governments would have to be amended as well, otherwise the territorial departments of the Ministry of Justice’s would ask the regular courts to annul them. If these deadlines were not met, then these regional bodies might be dissolved. Other proposals dealt with the obligation of the federal executive to amend unconstitutional regulations within two months. The federal government would have three months in which to draft the amendments to federal laws found unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court, and the Duma would have one month to consider the draft legislation. However, there was to be no time limit for the Duma to pass the law, as the federal legislators staunchly opposed requiring the Russian parliament to adopt any law.⁷

Soon after the conference, Sergei Kirienko, the presidential representative in the Volga federal district, asked the Constitutional Court to issue an official clarification of its June 2000 ruling on the regional “sovereignty” clauses. Facing pressures from the Kremlin and regional defiance of federal policies in Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, Kirienko asked the Court to find a way to carry out its decisions and punish regional leaders who refused to obey them. The justices reacted unusually promptly and issued an official clarification on April 19. The Court stated that regional heads were obliged to carry out Constitutional Court decisions and change regional legal norms according to these decisions. Failure to comply could result in an official warning from the Russian president, the first step in the procedure for the removal of regional governors or the dissolution of regional legislatures.⁸ Such a quick reply by the Court showed the nearly unanimous support among its members to use the opportunity provided by Putin’s support of the Court to assert the finality and binding force of its decisions and to affirm the supremacy of the federal Constitution over regional laws. Needless to say, this clarification also aided Putin’s efforts to streamline regional laws.

Clashing visions of constitutional review in the Duma

On May 23, 2001, Putin sent to the Duma a set of amendments to the Law on the Russian Constitutional Court dealing with implementation. These amendments required the Duma to pass a constitutional version of the law in six months and broadly evoked the federal government’s oversight powers regarding regional implementation of Constitutional Court decisions.

Preparing this bill for the first reading, the Duma Committee on State Building (DCSB), chaired by Anatoly Lukianov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation), disagreed with the presidential administration and stated that the existing mechanism of decision enforcement was sufficient. Moreover, the DCSB proposed some dramatic changes amounting to a wholly different understanding of the Court’s authority and power. The committee proposed limiting the formal final part of each Constitutional Court decision to a single statement regarding the conformity, or lack thereof, of any given legal rule with constitutional norms. According to this proposal, the Constitutional Court would no longer be able to give concrete orders to the highest state bodies or to direct them in the amendment of unconstitutional norms. The DCSB also proposed passing a separate law on the procedures for enacting legal acts and to include in this law the norms on the implementation of Court decisions.⁹

Valery Grebennikov (Fatherland–All Russia), who was rumored to be Putin’s nominee for the Constitutional Court bench, presented this DCSB proposal during the first reading of the bill, on June 28, 2001. He stressed that the Court’s decisions should not contain instructions on how to correct legal norms found “unconstitutional.” Complaining that the Constitutional Court issues this kind of instruction frequently, Grebennikov argued that the Court’s opinion may not be the only way to correct a legal norm and that the legislature may choose other ways to comply with the decision. He warned that the presidential amendments on implementing Constitutional Court decisions would bind the legislature and mix the legislative and judicial prerogatives.¹⁰ Oleg Utkin (Unity [Edinstvo]), also a DCSB member, was more direct and argued that these amendments represent only one vision of the Court’s role. He argued that the Constitution itself granted the power to enact laws exclusively to parliament and did not authorize 19 Constitutional Court justices to make legal rules of direct effect. In short, both legislators argued for a very limited version of constitutional review combined with judicial restraint and no involvement of the Court in the business of implementing its decisions.

Sergei Popov (Yabloko) directly confronted this extreme view of the Court espoused by Grebennikov and Utkin. Popov argued that the Constitutional Court cannot help creating legal norms in the process of interpreting the Constitution or scrutinizing contested legal acts. He admitted that he did not like certain Court decisions, but this should not be an excuse to deprive the Court of its power to issue final and binding decisions. Grebennikov replied that Popov’s vision of Court decisions would move the Russian legal system away from its codified foundations toward “judge-made” law.

Boris Nadezhdin (Union of Right Forces) and other legislators criticized the presidential amendments claiming that they spoke only to the Duma’s obligation to pass the law and omitted similar requirements on the part of the Federation Council and the president. Nadezhdin also pointed out that setting deadlines for the state bodies to carry out Court decisions diminished the authoritative force of Court rulings because everyone would be waiting for the legislative reaction by federal and regional governments. If this reaction were slow, no actual implementation of the decision would follow. Presidential envoy Alexander Kotenkov responded that a norm found unconstitutional by the Court was null and void from the moment it was proscribed by the decision. Often this annulment of a norm results in legal uncertainty. He said that the president introduced these amendments in order to shorten this period of legal uncertainty. After a 37-minute discussion, the Duma passed the presidential amendments in the first reading, rejecting the DCSB recommendations and allocating one month for the committee to prepare the amendments for the second reading.

Justices vs. legislators

As it prepared for the second reading in the fall of 2001, Kozak’s group widely publicized the positive feedback from the Council of Europe’s Venice Commission regarding the judicial-reform package. According to one publication, European legal experts hailed the amendments, clarifying the implementation of Constitutional Court decisions, as a “model for European legislation standards.”¹¹ This public-relations campaign seemed to imply that Europe’s backing provided a strong impetus for Russian legislators to pass the amendments.

Meanwhile, the CSB continued to reject other parts of Putin’s judicial-reform package. Finally, a compromise between the presidential administration and the legislators was achieved in mid-November of 2001. This compromise included two new amendments to the law on the Constitutional Court drastically limiting the discretion of the justices and weakening the force of Court decisions. Oleg Utkin targeted the final section of Court decisions. He proposed that this part should contain only the name of the scrutinized law or decree and/or the list of the clauses examined by the Court. This final section should not set forth the rights and obligations of individuals and state bodies. This proposal was directed against the Court’s current practice of giving orders to the legislature and to the federal courts and of issuing binding statutory interpretation.

Boris Nadezhdin, for his part, proposed limiting the legal reasoning of the Court’s decisions. According to Nadezhdin, this reasoning should not contain any orders to individuals, state officials, or government bodies. Both legislators argued that Constitutional Court decisions were not sources of law since the Constitution neither recognized judicial precedent nor authorized the judiciary to make laws. Together, their proposals effectively would transform the Constitutional Court into an advisory body. It is possible that the committee treated Utkin’s and Nadezhdin’s proposals as part of a larger bargain requiring the Duma to approve the judicial-reform package in exchange for diminishing Constitutional Court discretion and reducing the legal force of its decisions.¹² The committee approved both amendments and recommended enacting them in the second reading.

While Utkin’s proposals had already been voiced in June 2001, the amendment proposed by Nadezhdin, famous for his draft law on the Constitutional Assembly, was new and surprising. Nadezhdin’s initiative may have been provoked by the frequent use by the Constitutional Court of an exclusive unwritten “authority” to correct and interpret the Constitution in the absence of the Constitutional Assembly. Perhaps, he felt that the Court had changed the meaning of constitutional norms so extensively that this had diminished the demand for his pet project—designing a constitutional assembly, a body whose vote would be required to amend the Constitution. The Constitutional Court justices became very alarmed at the various possibilities and used all available channels to block these amendments. Formally, Constitutional Court justices are forbidden to discuss in public bills that may come under their review in the future. The justices, however, enjoy good relations with the mass media and the support of the presidential administration. Justices Anatoly Sliva, former presidential envoy to the Federation Council, and Marat Baglai agreed that these amendments would end constitutional justice in Russia.¹³ Baglai also used the presence of Putin at a Civic Forum meeting convened in the Kremlin to complain publicly about the threats to the binding force of Constitutional Court decisions.¹⁴

On November 19, Tamara Morshchakova (who was soon to retire) gave two extensive interviews. In a radio interview, she said that the Supreme Court, which was engaged in jurisdictional struggles with the Constitutional Court, had pushed for these amendments and since the president could not veto them, they had a good chance of enactment. However, after they became law, the president could ask the Constitutional Court to review their constitutionality, and the Court would invalidate them.¹⁵ In another interview, Morshchakova said that the amendments destroyed the foundation of constitutional review and went against the presidential agenda. Further, she cited the Constitutional Court ruling that such fundamental amendments could not be considered in a second reading because they destroyed the purpose of the proposed legislation, namely to improve the implementation of Court decisions. Morshchakova also criticized the uncertain attitude of Kozak’s group toward these amendments since she had not received any assurances that Kozak would fight the proposals.¹⁶

On November 20, the daily Nezavisimaia Gazeta suggested that the Supreme Court supported and even sponsored Nadezhdin’s amendment.¹⁷ Indeed, Nadezhdin’s radio interview in mid-October echoed the agenda of the Supreme Court in other respects, too—pushing for more spending on courts, a higher degree of judicial independence from the governors, and the introduction of administrative courts. At that time, though, Nadezhdin did not mention his proposed changes to the status of Constitutional Court decisions.¹⁸ The newspaper also speculated that Dmitri Kozak would not oppose these amendments after the main compromise over the judicial-reform package was reached. One Moscow lawyers’ association signed a petition to the Duma recommending that Utkin’s and Nadezhdin’s amendments be dropped from consideration. Oleg Mironov, the human-rights ombudsman, expressed concern that the amendments would damage the Court’s authority.

On the morning of November 21, Boris Nemtsov, leader of the Union of Right Forces faction in the Duma, reported that after much heated debate the majority of faction members opposed Nadezhdin’s amendment and demanded he rescind his proposal. They claimed that it would make the Court into a consultative body and that the Communists would vote for this amendment, effectively making it into a law. They gave as an instance Anatoly Lukianov’s remark that the Constitutional Court should not make laws and interfere with legislative authority. Eventually, Nadezhdin agreed to withdraw his amendment, effectively removing it from the legislative debates.¹⁹

The Duma’s second reading: A unanimous legislature

On November 22, Utkin and Nadezhdin spoke at the second reading of the amendments to the Law on the Russian Constitutional Court. Utkin never mentioned his proposal to curtail the Court’s discretion and effectively withdrew it from consideration. Although Nadezhdin recalled his amendment, citing strong pressure from the Court justices, he introduced another amendment depriving the Court of the power to specify the timing of the validity of Court decisions. According to Nadezhdin, Court decisions should enter into force immediately because these decisions are final and could not be appealed. While the committee rejected this proposal, the presidential envoy supported it on the grounds that it was impermissible for the Court to delay implementation of its decisions and to allow unconstitutional acts to stand for a set period.

Constitutional courts sometimes delay the implementation of their decisions in order to allow legislatures to adopt a properly constitutional version of an invalidated law. This is done when the judges feel that immediate invalidation of a law would have more harmful effects than allowing contested norms to remain on the books. Judges usually couch these delays in terms of respecting the legislative authority to fill the legal vacuum created by the annulment of the norm. For instance, the immediate declaration of the unconstitutionality of an electoral law could lead to the illegality of the current composition of a legislature and all the acts passed by this legislature.²⁰ To avoid legal chaos, the Constitutional Court will delay the implementation of such a decision and not question the legitimacy of standing legislature, albeit the Court would direct it to change the law for the next elections.

In spite of the foregoing, Nadezhdin’s amendment directed the Court judges not to include implementation delays in their decision. The Duma then voted to pass this amendment,²¹ the effect of which is that it may restrict the discretion of the Court justices in determining the terms of Court decisions in the future, limit the freedom of judicial maneuvering in order to make decisions easier to accept, and narrow the basis for bargaining among Court members over the essence of their decisions.

The Duma also passed an amendment stating that any dissenting opinions should be published only in the Russian Constitutional Court Herald. This measure will limit the use of dissenting opinions as arguments in favor of noncompliance with Court decisions. Before this amendment, dissenting opinions (which many Russian jurists believe damaged the authority of Court decisions) were published alongside the official rulings in the government daily Rossiiskaia Gazeta. This publication is printed in 31 Russian cities and has a circulation of over 400,000. The dissenting opinions, on the other hand, will now be published only in a bimonthly journal, which has only few thousand copies printed in Moscow. Restricting access to dissenting opinions may obscure the Court’s legal reasoning and could stifle the growth of Russian constitutional-law doctrine.

In short, the Duma rushed through the 30- minute second reading of the amendments to the Constitutional Court statute focusing on details rather than the conceptual issues of the judicial review. Neither was there any clash of opposing visions of constitutional review, which would have been instructive. Utkin’s amendment simply disappeared from the list of proposed changes, while Nadezhdin took back his original amendment amid loud cheers from his colleagues. And the Duma unanimously voted for the “implementation” amendments, the exact details of which are discussed below.

Final reading and enactment

A week later, on November 28, the Duma passed these amendments in the third reading. The upper chamber of the parliament, the Federation Council, approved the legislative changes on December 5, and Putin signed them ten days later.²² Whereas the earlier version of the statute called for the immediate implementation of any Constitutional Court decision, the amendments as passed establish the obligation of government bodies to implement those Court decisions that invalidate legal norms or require new regulations. The new provisions give a two-month time limit to the president, the federal government, and regional governors to change decrees, resolutions, and bilateral treaties found unconstitutional. The federal government has three months in which to introduce a new bill in the Duma following a Constitutional Court decision annulling a federal law. The Duma cannot delay debating this bill and must consider it as soon as possible. The amendments contain no sanctions in the event of failure by the federal government, president, and legislature to implement Constitutional Court decisions in accordance with the new deadlines. Regional parliaments have six months to bring regional laws into the compliance with decisions. Regional legal norms analogous to the ones found unconstitutional must also be changed within a sixmonth period. Failure to meet these deadlines could result in the dissolution of the regional legislatures or the removal of the regional governors.²³

Putin hailed the implementation amendments as strengthening the direct applicability of the Constitution and speeding up implementation of Constitutional Court decisions. According to Putin, “it is impermissible [that] unconstitutional laws and regulations [should] continue to be applied,” because the application of invalid laws directly violates the rights of Russian citizens.²⁴ The Constitutional Court officially supported these implementation amendments. Justice Boris Ebzeev stressed that they made good use of Constitutional Court experience and rationalized the execution mechanism of Court decisions. He used the example of various regional norms that were inconsistent with the Constitution and pointed out that the new machinery would contribute to the harmonization of regional and federal laws.²⁵

Still, Tamara Morshchakova was worried that the implementation of Court decisions would depend on the necessary agreement of other state institutions to repeal an annulled norm or to adopt a new one in accordance with Constitutional Court directives. This weakens the finality of Court decisions—a point made earlier—because it hints at the necessity of additional confirmation of these decisions by other state institutions. In other words, these amendments advance the tacit understanding that the Court decisions do not have any binding force by themselves.^26<

Conclusion

These amendments reflect a ten-year-old controversy among Russian jurists whether Constitutional Court decisions set precedents and establish legal norms. As the Constitutional Court renders more and more “legal positions” and directives, parliament and the judiciary may have trouble understanding and following them. Moreover, the Constitutional Court increasingly defines the constitutional meaning of legal norms that used to be the traditional domain of the legislature, the executive branch, and the Supreme Court. Nadezhdin’s and Utkin’s proposed amendments had aimed at solving this tension by eliminating the legal binding force of the Constitutional Court’s legal positions and directives. These proposals and their failure show that the Court is gaining power at the federal level and that sharing this power with other institutions is going to be difficult in practice.²⁷

The adopted changes strengthen the federal executive authorities in their relations with the regional authorities, who will now have to pay attention to Constitutional Court decisions and to meet implementation deadlines, or otherwise face risk of being removed or dissolved. These amendments impose an obligation on the federal and regional legislatures and executives to cooperate in the rapid correction of legal norms that the Court declares unconstitutional. It remains to be seen how these federal and regional bodies will meet these deadlines and obligations in the future: selectively or on the regular basis? If used selectively, these legislative changes could become a useful weapon in the federal executive authorities’ fight against regional elites. If used regularly, the implementation amendments could strengthen Russian constitutionalism.

The politics that swirled around these amendments also shows that politicians would like to use the Constitutional Court to legitimize their policies. Once Putin attempted to remove the ceiling on the retirement age favoring the Court leadership, the parliament used Putin’s initiative to punish Justice Morshchakova by keeping the retirement age for her. Moreover, new tenure amendments reestablish the mandatory retirement age of 70 for the Constitutional Court justices beginning in January of 2005. Therefore, even in the context of total legislative support for presidential policies, the opponents of the increasing powerful constitutional judiciary still have many opportunities to weaken it in the course of legislative bargaining. The initial hesitation of Kozak’s group to reject Utkin’s and Nadezhdin’s amendments, in order to rush the judicial-reform package through the Duma, is a case in point. Could such legislativeexecutive cooperation in the future threaten the Court’s power and independence?

In the short term, the amendments of 2001 did not further empower the Constitutional Court, since its opponents secured the retirement of one of the more experienced and hard-working justices and publicly questioned the legitimacy of strong constitutional review. Moreover, they triggered a lasting split among Constitutional Court justices, damaging their working relationship.²⁸ Nor did they enhance the Court’s authority and public image given the conspiracy rumors about plots between the Constitutional Court and Putin. Throughout the year, instead of adjudicating cases, the justices were forced to spend time lobbying politicians since the latter seemed more than willing to sacrifice the power of the Constitutional Court in their hurry to enact the judicial-reform package.

The long-term impact of these amendments is less clear. Assuming the Court recovers from the negative short-term effects, the Court itself may simply ignore them and continue its current mode of decision making. Federal and regional authorities could create the suspicion that Court decisions by themselves do not mean much, and that the rulings will carry substantive weight only after other institutions repeal or change the invalidated laws. Thus, it would be these bodies that determine the “meaning” of a Court decision, confirming its finality and binding force only by dint of changing their laws. It is more likely, however, that federal and regional authorities will report their increasing rates of implementation to show their respect, as it were, for the rule of law. It remains to be seen whether meeting new implementation deadlines will result in the actual increase of judicial power in Russia.