Who are the judges?

Sheveleva, together with Lyudmila Kuleshova, constituted a kind of “independent faction” in the Criminal Code, not being one of the judges who were selflessly loyal to Smolny. Her departure reduces this faction to a minimum. There is little doubt that some person who suits the governor will be elected to replace Sheveleva.
The peculiarity of the situation is that of all seven judges, Sheveleva had a reputation as perhaps the most highly qualified “statist” lawyer: she is a professor at St. Petersburg University, head of the department of state and administrative law.
Before her election in November 2005, Natalya Sheveleva worked as an adviser to the now former chairman of the Supreme Court, dean of the Faculty of Law Nikolai Kropachev, who lost his seat after the court became too independent and began to recognize the decisions of the city administration as illegal. Sheveleva was nominated for the post of judge by the Democratic faction of the Legislative Assembly - the Democrats were allocated one seat in the “package” by which judges were elected.
Six months passed, the court began work - and first of all, as Novaya already reported, it refused to recognize six resolutions of the city government approving various programs as normative acts. Two days later, Sheveleva wrote a letter of resignation - according to her colleague Lyudmila Kuleshova, “due to the unhealthy atmosphere in court.” Indeed, according to available information, the chairman of the court, Sergei Sergevnin, has already expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that Sheveleva lectures to students “during working hours.” The fact that Mr. Chairman himself also reads them does not bother him.
According to Natalia Evdokimova, who represented the deputies in this process in the Charter Court, Sheveleva’s decision is directly related to the court’s decision.
“The decision of the Criminal Code could not but cause protest from a lawyer like Natalya Aleksandrovna,” says Evdokimova. – She is the greatest specialist in her field, I studied with her when I received my second higher education at the Faculty of Law. Her departure is a huge loss for the court. I understand her perfectly: she is a professor, she gives lectures to students about what normative acts are and what their characteristics are, and here the Charter Court refuses to recognize government decrees as normative acts that satisfy all these characteristics. But I still evaluate her departure negatively. We spent so much effort so that she could become a judge of the Criminal Code and so that there would be another person independent from the administration - and now everything has gone to waste. We won’t even try to nominate anyone in her place, nothing will work anyway. "United Russia" will receive a command from the governor - and will choose some obedient person...
With such a person, I think, there will be no problems. There are already nominations (unofficial for now). One of them is a former judge of the Criminal Code, who was swept away by deputies in the elections in November, now the governor’s representative in court, Alexei Liverovsky. Another candidate is Legislative Assembly deputy Andrei Chernykh, who very timely from this point of view replaced the Democratic faction with “United Russia”. Now Smolny will decide which of them is more acceptable. However, other candidates may appear for a very attractive position with a status equal to that of the lieutenant governor.

Vladimir MAKSIMOV