Valery Zorkin

Valery Dmitrievich Zorkin (Вале́рий Дми́триевич Зо́рькин; born 18 February 1943) is a Russian jurist serving as the 4th and current President of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. He also served as the 1st President of the Constitutional Court in 1991-1993.

As of 2024, Zorkin is the oldest high-ranking officeholder in Russia.

Biography
Zorkin was born on February 18, 1943, in the village of Konstantinovka, in the Oktyabrsky District of the Primorsky Krai (Maritime Province). In 1964, he graduated with a law degree from the Faculty of Law of Moscow State University, where he worked as a lecturer until the late 1980s. During this time, he also taught at the Higher Correspondence School of Law of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and became a professor. Zorkin was recognized as a leading expert on the legal teachings of Boris Chicherin and led a group of experts under the Soviet Constitutional Commission to further the case for Russia to become a presidential republic during the last years of the Soviet Union. After the August coup, Zorkin left the CPSU.

In October 1991, Zorkin became a judge of the Constitutional Court of Russia. On November 1, he was elected the first (and only) President of the Court with unlimited tenure, and during the Russian constitutional crisis of 1992-1993, he and the Constitutional Court clashed with President Boris Yeltsin over a number of issues. This included his decision to ban the Communist Party and, later, the National Salvation Front. On November 30, 1992, Zorkin's court overturned Yeltsin's decision to dissolve the local branches of the Communist Party, agreeing with Yeltsin that it was legal to dissolve the ruling bodies of a political party.

In September 1993, Zorkin became involved in a bitter dispute about the legality of President Yeltsin's decision to dissolve the Supreme Soviet of Russia, a decision that went against the outdated Constitution of the RSFSR. He is often credited for standing behind the September 22, 1993 ruling by the court, which declared Yeltsin's decision unconstitutional. Although the ruling (with 9 judges supporting it and 4 against it ) agreed with the Constitution, Yeltsin suspended the work of the Court and forced Zorkin to resign as President of the Court on October 6, 1993. However, he retained his position as a judge of the court.

Namely, according to reports, Sergey Filatov, Kremlin Chief of Staff, called the judges on the morning of October 5, demanding the resignation of Zorkin. However, eight out of the twelve judges present at the court session suggested that Zorkin should not resign. Four judges, including Nikolay Vitruk, Ernest Ametistov, Tamara Morshchakova, and Vladimir Oleynik recommended Zorkin's resignation. In the evening, Filatov himself contacted Zorkin and demanded that he step down, threatening to open a criminal case against him, accusing him of "creating a legal basis for the extremist activities of Rutskoy and Khasbulatov".

On October 6, Zorkin submitted his resignation as President of the Court, which was accepted by the Constitutional Court. Judge Vitruk was appointed acting President of the Constitutional Court, but on December 1 he and fellow judge Viktor Luchin were removed from the Constitutional Court after a vote of 5 against 4 over their political activity.

In December, Zorkin participated in a meeting with communists, nationalists, and other opponents to the new Constitution proposed by Yeltsin. On January 25, 1994, he was reinstated as a judge. However, in March 1994, Zorkin joined the "Concord in the Name of Russia" committee, along with Gennady Zyuganov, Alexander Rutskoy, Alexander Prokhanov, Sergey Glazyev, Stanislav Govorukhin, Aman Tuleyev et al. Despite writing the main report for the conference, Zorkin later left the Concord foundation due to his warnings from the Court regarding political activities. Following this, Zorkin stopped political activities and, as a non-president, he reportedly disagreed with the majority decision more frequently than other judges in the court. In 1995, for example, he voiced dissent over a Court ruling that the President and Prime Minister's decision to send Russian troops to Chechnya was justified.

Ten years after the court's decision that made him famous, on February 24, 2003, Zorkin was re-elected as the president of the court. Many observers viewed this as corroborative of the validity of the court's assessment of Yeltsin's actions in 1993. Controversially, in 2014, Zorkin published an article in Rossiyskaya Gazeta praising serfdom. In this article, Zorkin argued that serfdom united Russia and likened its abolition in 1861 to Yeltsin's 1990s reforms.

Sanctions
In December 2022 the EU sanctioned Valery Zorkin in relation to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Honours and awards

 * Order of Merit for the Fatherland;
 * 2nd class (19 October 2011) – for outstanding contribution to strengthening the constitutional foundations of Russian statehood and constitutional development
 * 3rd class (18 February 2008) – for his great contribution to the development of constitutional justice in the Russian Federation and many years of fruitful activity
 * Honoured Lawyer of Russia (23 March 2000) – for services to strengthen the rule of law and many years of honest work
 * Diploma of the President of Russia (12 December 2008) – for active participation in the drafting of the Constitution and a great contribution to the democratic foundations of the Russian Federation
 * Order of Friendship (Armenia) (2016)