Judge known for dissenting opinions resigns from Russian Constitutional Court 

Judge Konstantin Aranovsky has resigned from Russia’s Constitutional Court, according to the court’s official website.

The court’s press service reported that Aranovsky requested to step down early rather than waiting until he reached 70, the maximum age for Russian Constitutional Court judges.

While the court itself didn’t specify the reasons for Aranovsky’s resignation, the now-former judge has long been known as a critic of contemporary Russia’s policy trajectory. In 2019, he called the government’s ban on foreigners working in the media a “sign of censorship”; the following year, he published an opinion in which he said Russia should not be considered the successor of the “repressive-terrorist acts” of the Soviet authorities.

According to Kommersant, Russia’s Constitutional Court is slated to evaluate the constitutionality of Russia’s annexation of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics and other occupied Ukrainian territories in the coming days.

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