17 Feb 2020 18:51

Constitutional Court Judge Aranovsky's dissenting opinion differs from majority's opinion, has no validity in terms of law enforcement - court

ST. PETERSBURG. Feb 17 (Interfax) - A dissenting opinion that a Russian Constitutional Court judge may express on matters considered by the court differs from that shared by a majority of the judges and therefore has no validity in terms of law enforcement, the Constitutional Court press service said on Monday, commenting on the publication of Judge Konstantin Aranovsky's opinion on a case earlier heard by the court.

"The judge's opinion is not an integral part of the Constitutional Court's judgment. This is a separate document authored by this judge and published on the official website along with the judgment itself for convenience of the readers. A dissenting opinion by a Constitutional Court judge is their personal opinion differing from that shared by a majority of Constitutional Court judges," it said.

"Only the Russian Constitutional Court's judgment itself matters for law enforcement practices," it said.

Aranovsky voiced the minority opinion in a case concerning housing for rehabilitated victims of political repression. He said that Russia should not be viewed as the legal successor of "the repressive and terrorist deeds" of the former Soviet Union.

The judge's minority opinion, which was expressed during the course of verifying the constitutionality of Article 13 of the Russian Law "On Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repressions" and Paragraphs 3 and 5 of Article 7, Paragraph 1 Part 1 and Part 2 of Article 8 of the Moscow City Law "On the Provision of Housing Rights of Moscow City Residents," was published on the Constitutional Court website.

Aranovsky pointed to the resolution's wording, which defines "the Russian Federation as the legal successor of the USSR, the state whose activity is related to the incurred damage."

In the judge's opinion, the circumstances of the case, which concerns the infliction and compensation of damage done to victims of political repression, did not allow for interpreting the wording as universal (general) legal succession for a broad range of duties and obligations.

Legal succession is disputable in "legal relations deriving from the infliction of damage," the judge said, noting that it is important for legal succession that former and new states are not alien to one another and different, or else the transmission of guilt would lose its ethical-legal and political-legal grounds.

Aranovsky said that Russia's legal succession of the communist and Soviet authorities would call into question its right to determine the terms of compensating damages to victims of repression, including the composition of compensation.