Helpers of the Court: Russian Constitutional Court and Ombudsman

Abstract

In most countries, the main task of the constitutional court is to review compliance with the constitution. The basic method to perform this task is the elimination of violations upon an external request: after the court receives from applicants information about such violations in the form of claims or requests, it assesses the validity of such claim/requests and makes a decision on the particular issue that was brought up by an applicant, thereby restoring the constitutional order within the legal sphere in question. It is clear that one properly functioning court does not suffice for the successful realization of such a review model. One needs the coherent ecosystem of court helpers, who would collect relevant information about violations and supply it to judges — practically like raw materials, without which judicial control is impossible. The article analyzes the relationship of the Russian Constitutional Court with a specific type of such helpers — the Ombudsman. Based on the quantitative analysis of the database of the decisions of the Constitutional Court, the author traces the evolution of these relations over the time period from 1999 to the present day and attempts to identify the reasons why, despite the growing “friendliness” of the Constitutional Court towards the Ombudsman, the role of the latter in the judicial review is declining.