The “irreplaceable” head of the Russian Supreme Court, who managed to adapt to four presidents, has died

V. Lebedev since 1989 Worked as a supreme judge for 35 years. Back in 2012 Vladimir Putin abolished the age limit for the head of the Supreme Court in his first bill following his inauguration for the third presidential term. Yes V. Lebedev in 2019 became the longest-serving judge.

V. Lebedev’s wife is a relative of one of the now deceased members of the political bureau, an acquaintance of the judge told the independent portal “Agentstvo”. Two interviewees attribute this to the rapid growth of his career in the 1980s (from chairman of the Moscow Železnodoroznyj district court to head of the Supreme Court).

Back in 1986, when he was the deputy chairman of the Moscow City Court, V. Lebedev made a decision in one day and sent the writer Feliks Svetov to five years of exile. The reason was an excerpt from a short story describing the interrogation in Lubianka. The court saw in it an “accusation of the government’s failure to comply with socialist legality”.

V. Lebedev’s opinion as an independent arbiter was important for Vladimir Putin in solving conflicts in his environment. For example, V. Lebedev’s opinion was decisive in launching the 2007 detained Deputy Minister of Finance Sergey Storchak – Deputy Prime Minister Aleksey Kudrin filed a petition, and the FSB and the Investigative Committee defended the justice of the case.

Another case in which V. Lebedev might have played an important role is the detention of former defense minister Anatoly Serdyukov’s lover Yevgenia Vasilieva. She was placed under house arrest on charges of embezzling billions of dollars (a kindness unusual for general courts).

Scanpix/RIA Novosti photo/Vladimir Putin met with judge Vyacheslav Lebedev

The judge flew abroad on planes designed to transport top officials, had a security guard, an official homestead in Arkhangelsk, a plot of land in Rubliovka near the cottage of former Prosecutor General Yuriy Chaika, and an apartment in a house in Moscow (V. Putin was also registered in the adjacent house).

“V. Lebedev is the bearer of the ideology that judges are part of the law enforcement system,” said the retired high-ranking judge. The Supreme Court chief consistently stalled the judicial reforms of the 1990s, rejecting the election of judges and court presidents, removing the power of jury trials, introducing disciplinary liability and high salaries for judges with lifetime bonuses that made them more dependent on their superiors. This is how V. Lebedev’s activities were assessed by several retired judges, with whom the portal spoke.

Most recently, on February 21, the Supreme Court rejected Boris Nadezhdin’s latest lawsuit once morest the Central Election Commission’s refusal to register him as a presidential candidate. Month of January. the court rejected two lawsuits filed by Alexei Navalny once morest the colony – the Supreme Court has done so with the oppositionist’s complaints before.