The upper house of the Russian parliament, the Federation Council, opening its new session, locked horns again with President Boris Yeltsin when for a second time it threw out his candidate to be a judge in the Constitutional Court.


In a bad-tempered session, the chamber's first since the war began in Chechnya, deputies clashed on a number of issues but did not manage to stamp their authority on the conflict.


Robert Tsivilyov, a Kremlin aide, was the only candidate put before the chamber to be the 19th and last judge in the Constitutional Court. On a previous occasion in December he fell four votes short of being elected. This time he collected only 61 of a possible 176 votes from deputies angry at being asked to vote for him again. Seventy-one voted against.


Yeltsin suspended the Constitutional Court, the only body empowered to adjudicate on breaches of the constitution, in September 1993, when he dissolved the Supreme Soviet. It has not met since, although the new basic law has been in force since December 1993.


Tuesday's session proved that relations between the Kremlin and the upper house are now worse than ever.


Former industry minister Alexander Titkin said the council should reject Tsivilyov unless it wanted to see the Consitutional Court become a "branch of the president's administration."


Another deputy, Alexander Kovalyov, urged his colleagues to accept Tsivilyov, wondering if they would have to "descend to the level of the kindergarten" to find a candidate acceptable to everyone.


Speaker Vladimir Shumeiko, a close Yeltsin ally, gave a subdued warning to the chamber that if they threw out Tsivilyov, the president might stop putting up new candidates to the court altogether.


Shumeiko had raised the ire of deputies by not calling the Federation Council in special session in December, despite the conflict in Chechnya.


Opposition deputies put a motion on the agenda Tuesday calling for Shumeiko to be removed as speaker. But the motion was put 25th on the agenda, giving it no hope of being discussed. Its proponents later withdrew it.


Yeltsin's chief of staff Sergei Filatov, who presented Tsivilyov to the chamber, got in a heated dispute with one of the deputies in the corridor afterwards. Filatov accused the Federation Council of "hitting the president in the face" by refusing to accept his nominees to the Constitutional Court.


Deputies decided to invite a series of ministers and Yeltsin himself to address the council before they discussed the Chechen conflict. Asked by a reporter if Yeltsin would accept the invitation to appear before the Federation Council, Filatov said sourly "I don't think so."


Many deputies were angry that their chamber, supposedly the highest regional forum in Russia, has had no say on Chechen policy.


"Those people who take political decisions have not paid attention to a single point in our resolutions," complained Ramazan Abdulatipov, the council's Dagestani deputy speaker. "And many possible actions were not taken by the Chechen side and the federal authorities which would have dampened down the conflict."


Abdulatipov said the Chechen crisis was encouraging "centrifugal tendencies of a nationalistic kind" which were already evident in the Federation Council.