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President of Russia Vladimir Putin: How are you doing, Mr Zorkin? How is the work going?

Constitutional Court President Valery Zorkin: Things are good here, Mr President. I was in Moscow not long ago, and things are good there as well.

Vladimir Putin: You wanted to brief me on the current developments, correct? Please go ahead.

Valery Zorkin: Speaking of this year, we met in December, and all judges were in attendance. Of course, we are living in challenging times and this affects the performance of the Constitutional Court, particularly with regard to the petitions that come our way. But overall, I believe – this may sound a bit presumptuous – we are coping with these challenges.

The total number of complaints that we have received has not increased, but has remained unchanged. Speaking of the complaints, we used to have around 19,000–20,000 complaints a long, long time ago, whereas now we normally get 11,000 complaints. The thing is that back then the number of complaints that remained for our determination… Now, out of the 11,000 that we get, the court is reviewing a greater number than it did back then.

In other words, the level of the public and, of course, those who assist them, meaning lawyers and legal representatives… They have a better understanding of what to expect from the Constitutional Court and its competence. There are limits to what we can do, since we are a subsidiary court, the ultimate instance.

Notably, there has been a change in the law. Previously – maybe not everyone is aware of it – for example, we would receive complaints from Magadan and review them. That did not make a lot of sense, because there are courts of general jurisdiction and arbitration courts, including the Supreme Court, that need to review cases first. This has been fixed, and I think it is a good thing.

Many were dissatisfied with this change and thought it made access to the Constitutional Court more complicated. But the fact is that this kind of practice is followed around the world. How can a case go directly from a district court to the Constitutional Court when there is the Supreme Court?

Moreover, Strasbourg did the same in the 1990s and even early 2000s, accepting cases directly from districts. Russia strongly insisted on having our justice system respected. I believe everything has been straightened out.

Breaking complaints into groups, I would say the trend has remained consistent over the years. It has not changed much and includes issues related to civil law, such as business and property, as well as labour and social relations. Of course, there are still many cases related to criminal law and procedure. In fact, there are many more criminal procedure cases than any other.

As the saying goes, the devil is in the details, so the norms that we review often undergo certain changes and interpretations in real life. These interpretations do not always work out as desired. The Constitutional Court has a great responsibility, because we do not simply address an individual citizen’s complaint, but we essentially decide on the fate of a legal norm. This means that we pass judgment both on a particular case and all other cases currently governed by this norm in the courts of general jurisdiction. This works for the future as well.

Another point I would like to make concerns our relationship with the legislator. There was a time, especially in the 1990s, when gross mistakes were made. I do not think this was due to malice on the part of the legislator, but rather because the system was still in the making.

Now – and it is not because the Constitutional Court has become more lenient, since our standards have remained unchanged – greater number of issues are related not so much to the text of the law, even though there still are errors, but to how it is applied in practice. Many things come into play. The process starts with the executive bodies and then moves to courts, and it does not always pan out the way the legislator originally planned.

In the end, however, the responsibility still lies with the legislator and us. We must interpret the law correctly in accordance with the Constitution to ensure that everything follows the proper course.

The reason I brought up this issue up is because there are now fewer decisions coming from us where we directly declare a law unconstitutional which means there is no head-on conflict with the Constitution, and instead, we are clarifying the meaning of the law. The constitutional meaning is no less important for the applicant because by doing so we immediately correct things that have been distorted when the law was applied in practice. So the law remains in place, but its meaning for law enforcement changes.

In this regard, I want to note that compared to previous periods the workload of the Constitutional Court has not changed much, but has significantly decreased from 19,000 complaints to 11,000 due to constitutional amendments.

Overall, the situation is like this: 60 rulings are major decisions addressing significant issues which have a large impact, I would say. About 3,000 determinations in which we do not directly declare a law unconstitutional, but we explain how it should be applied according to the law. These determinations are also incorporated into legal practice, and both lawyers and law enforcers use our legal positions.

Vladimir Putin: Good, thank you.

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