Irina Podnosova. Photo: kremlin.ru

Irina Podnosova, the chief justice of Russia’s Supreme Court, has died in Moscow at the age of 71 “after a serious illness”, state-owned news agency TASS reported on Tuesday.

A former classmate of Vladimir Putin at the Law Faculty of Leningrad State University, Podnosova was appointed chief justice in April 2024. She was the sole candidate put forward for the role by a collegium of judges, following the death in February of that year of Vyacheslav Lebedev, who had served at the Supreme Court since 1991.

The Russian Supreme Court, a court of last resort for cases heard in Russia’s lower courts, consists of 170 judges, but is overseen by a praesidium of 13 justices.

The Supreme Court effectively operates as a rubber stamp institution despite having the power to refer presidential decrees and parliamentary bills to the Constitutional Court to challenge them. The court’s controversial recent rulings include disbanding one of the few non-systemic opposition parties in the country, recognising “the international LGBT movement” as extremist and ordering the liquidation of Memorial, one of Russia’s oldest human rights groups.