ABSTRACT
As Russia entered the twenty-first century, one of its main objectives continued to be the creation of a stable society ruled by law. Ancillary to this endeavor is the ongoing task of institution-building, which is an essential part of the larger, longer-term process of democratic state-building; in essence, the building or restructuring of core legal institutions into a viable legal system. In this chapter, the focus is on the Russian Constitutional Court (RCC)—one of the newer additions to Russia's spectrum of legal institutions, and one that has grown in stature and importance within the political system. This has especially been the case of the second Constitutional Court, which was first convened in 1995 and has gradually accrued to itself the values and attributes that eluded its ill-fated predecessor, the first Constitutional Court. There was peril in the shadowy borderland between law and politics, and finding safe passage through that uncharted territory was the major challenge of his chief justiceship.
