Yeltsin nominated five persons for the three vacancies Monday on the 19-member Constitutional Court, inactive since the October 1993 parliamentary uprising in which former court chairman Valery Zorkin sided with the rebellious Supreme Soviet against Yeltsin. The court cannot resume operations until it has its full membership.
The nominees have to be approved by the Federation Council, the Russian parliament's upper chamber, where a vote is scheduled for Tuesday. Last month, three of Yeltsin's six nominees were voted down because of legislators' concern over their possible political ties to the president, but two of them are now among the candidates again.
As the Federation Council's Constitutional Law Committee interviewed the five candidates, the members fell silent when Kalmykov took his seat at the opposite end of a long table from committee chairman Issa Kostoyev.
"The only question that comes to mind is how come you're here being interviewed," Kostoyev said after a pause.
"If more nominees get rejected, you may soon see the prime minister here," Sergei Filatov, Yeltsin's chief of staff, answered for Kalmykov.
Reports about the minister's imminent resignation have been circulating for the past few weeks, but Kalmykov said after the committee hearing that he only intends to resign if he is approved for the Constitutional Court position. Kostoyev said, "I would not be running for the Constitutional Court if I were justice minister, but we approve your candidacy. See you in the chamber."
Approval of Kalmykov by the full council seemed likely as committee members lavished praise on the respected legal scholar. He worked extensively on the constitution and now says he wants to supervise observation of the charter as a judge.
After previously nominating a string of provincial judges and members of his staff, Yeltsin this time proposed another relatively high-profile candidate, Yury Danilov, who was deputy Soviet justice minister in the late 1980s.
The other new candidate nominated is Raif Biktagirov, a Tatarstan lawyer and newspaper commentator.
The two nominees rejected last month are Mikhail Krasnov, an aide to Yeltsin's national security adviser, and Moscow judge Valery Savitsky.
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