He said that Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, had asked him about this at their meeting today.
Mr. Zorkin told her that no pressure has been or is exerted.
"The only outrage took place in 1993, but the situation [at the time] was far from legal," said Mr. Zorkin.
A positive factor is that the Constitutional Court comprises 19 judges, he said.
"The Constitutional Court's collegiality secures it from outside pressure and from mistakes," said Mr. Zorkin.
Mr. Zorkin headed the Constitutional Court before September 1993, when Boris Yeltsin shelled the Supreme Soviet building from tanks. Judge Zorkin sided with the parliamentary opposition and invalidated Yeltsin's famous decree No. 1400 to dissolve the Supreme Soviet and the People's Deputies' Convention. The Constitutional Court upheld that the signing of the decree was sufficient grounds for Mr. Yeltsin's impeachment.
