This time the ex-chair of the Moscow Region Court has spoken out

Yekaterina Zapodinskaya, Kommersant, 03.06.2008

The announcement of a competition to replace the head of the Moscow City Court has coincided with a scandalous letter on the Internet from Svetlana Marasanova, former chairwoman of the Moscow Region Court.

Last year Ms Marasanova lost a similar competition for her post, which she had held for 13 years, to the head of a district court in Sochi. She was not re-appointed, says Marasanova, because of her refusal to carry out unlawful instructions on particular cases that “originated with officials in the presidential administration”. The former head of the Moscow Region Court believes that the present system of appointments permits “the manipulation of people in order to subject the entire system to their will, and to get rich and exercise power”. Ms Marasanova said that her deputies had also been forced out of their jobs and that “those who remain are almost entirely demoralised”. It is noteworthy that the revelations of the former head of the Moscow Region Court appeared only after President Putin’s aide, Victor Ivanov, was transferred to other work. It had been his job, among other tasks, to oversee personnel issues in the courts.

The Supreme Credentials Collegium of Judges would not comment on Ms Marasanova’s remarks but her letter has already influenced the way they operate. At the last session of the Collegium on 21 May it was recommended that two judges, Bomasheva and Davydov, be put forward to head the Supreme Court of the North Caucasian republic of Karachaevo-Cherkesk so that the Collegium did not itself make the final selection.