In North Ossetia, more than 15 million rubles from the republican budget will be allocated annually for the maintenance of five former judges of the Constitutional Court. This became known at a meeting of the republic’s parliament on January 28, which voted in the first reading to abolish the Constitutional Court. The law comes into force on April 1, 2022.
All payments will be made in accordance with federal law, said Alina Aidarova, Minister of Labor and Social Development of North Ossetia, Gradus.pro.
In December 2020, a federal constitutional law was passed ordering the abolition of regional constitutional courts. The bill itself was submitted to the State Duma by the President of the Russian Federation in connection with amendments to the Constitution. In its previous edition, Art. 118 stated that “the judicial system of the Russian Federation is established by the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the federal constitutional law.” But in 2020, the phrase was included in the Basic Law: “The judicial system of the Russian Federation is made up of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation; Supreme Court of the Russian Federation; federal courts of general jurisdiction; arbitration courts; justices of the peace of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. Regional Constitutional Courts are simply not included in this list.
Instead of the Constitutional Courts in the republics, constitutional councils are created at legislative assemblies, but their functions are not defined. With the abolition of the Constitutional Courts, the regions lose another basis of their independence.
According to the law of December 2020, the existing Constitutional (charter) courts of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation are to be abolished until January 1, 2023. Dozens of subjects have already abolished their Constitutional Courts. So, in November 2021, the Parliament of Ingushetia adopted a corresponding decision.
In 2018, the republic’s Constitutional Court played an important role during the crisis caused by the border agreement between Chechnya and Ingushetia. It caused outrage in Ingush society and led to protests, the participants of which were subsequently harassed, and some of them were condemned for 7-9 years in a colony. In the fall of 2018, the Constitutional Court of Ingushetia ruled that the border agreement that came into force does not comply with the Basic Law of the Republic and does not give rise to legal consequences without its approval in a referendum.