Yeltsin Shuts Down Russia’s Highest Court

President Boris N. Yeltsin, accusing Russia’s highest judges of bringing the country to the verge of civil war, closed down the Constitutional Court on Thursday. The move left Yeltsin’s presidency the only branch of power still functioning in Russia.

In a blistering decree issued late Thursday, Yeltsin said the court had previously made decisions that inflamed Russia’s delicate political situation, but that “when the threat of civil war became a reality, the court did nothing.”

Yeltsin had no constitutional right to suspend the court, which was meant to be an independent, supreme arbiter standing above rough-and-tumble politics--something like the U.S. Supreme Court.

But he couched his decree as a statement of existing fact, noting that the 13-member court could not work anyway because some dissenting justices had been boycotting it, and Chief Justice Valery D. Zorkin had resigned under pressure Wednesday. He ordered it “not to convene until Russia has a new constitution.”

The suspension of the court came 2 1/2 weeks after Yeltsin dissolved Russia’s hard-line Parliament, long the bane of his reforms. A 13-day standoff between Yeltsin and defiant lawmakers followed and exploded into battles between Parliament backers and loyalist troops on Sunday and Monday, leaving an estimated 193 dead.

In Washington on Thursday, the State Department issued a statement expressing continuing support for Yeltsin: “The United States supports the establishment and strengthening of an independent Russian judiciary.”

Although Moscow has remained subdued under curfew since Monday and no new opposition has flared, Yeltsin said he considers times still “far from normal.” Defense Minister Pavel S. Grachev told the Russian Television Network that emergency rule in the capital, which had been expected to end next Sunday, could be extended for another week.

As Russia paid tribute to victims of the fighting on Thursday with carpets of carnations and special Masses, Yeltsin set forth the next steps of his political crackdown. He laid down the law on the parliamentary elections he wants held Dec. 12 and claimed the personal right to appoint and fire regional leaders, withdrawing a previous statement that they would face elections.

With Parliament dissolved, its White House headquarters a charred wreck and the Constitutional Court closed down, “the only limitations left (on Yeltsin) are moral ones,” political scientist Rashid Kaplanov said.

The Constitutional Court was created in late 1991 as part of Russia’s ambition to become a state ruled by law rather than by the dictates of party or autocrat. But it was plagued from the beginning by pressure from various leaders and stymied by a political scene so volatile that it was impossible to stay above it.

Chief Justice Zorkin tried repeatedly to mediate between Yeltsin and the Parliament and did manage to defuse one crisis last March. But when Yeltsin decreed Parliament’s dissolution on Sept. 21, Zorkin and the court came down firmly against him, calling the move unconstitutional. Zorkin later tried to help negotiate a compromise, but failed.

“From an organ of constitutional justice, the Constitutional Court turned into a weapon of political struggle, presenting extreme danger to the state,” Yeltsin contended in the decree.

Yeltsin and his backers argue that the current Russian constitution, a patchwork of new laws and old Soviet statutes, is such a mess that it should not be considered the nation’s supreme charter, and a new one must be adopted as quickly as possible. That has not proved easy, however.

Russia is also lacking a law on new elections, so Yeltsin simply issued decrees Thursday on the procedures for balloting and on the form that the new upper chamber of Parliament will take.

“At a gut level, Yeltsin thinks democracy is good,” historian Andrei Kortunov said. “But that is not necessarily projected in his decisions.”

Yeltsin has stopped short of dissolving local and regional soviets, or councils--the other shoe that was expected to drop after he penned out of existence the national Congress of People’s Deputies. But he did confirm Thursday his decision to dissolve the Moscow Council and smaller district councils, saying they had sided with Parliament against him. He had demanded in a televised speech Wednesday that other soviets dissolve themselves.

Across the country on Thursday, discussions were beginning in parliaments on whether they should self-destruct and voluntarily take part in the Dec. 12 elections.

Meanwhile, the roundups after the gun battles at the Ostankino television center in Moscow and the White House continued. Security forces nabbed a die-hard Communist ringleader, Viktor I. Anpilov, catching him wearing a bulletproof vest but unarmed in a house near Tula. And they said they were hot on the trail of another opposition leader, Ilya V. Konstantinov.

Police boasted that curfew and emergency rule had brought the Russian capital the side benefit of reducing car thefts and accidents to near zero.

Parliament Chairman Ruslan I. Khasbulatov and Vice President Alexander V. Rutskoi, who led the resistance, were reported to be dining on cabbage soup in prison and hiring lawyers known for defending the leaders of the 1991 coup attempt.

The first formal charge stemming from the clashes was brought against Stanislav Terekhov, leader of the renegade Officers Union, who stands accused of obtaining weapons through armed robbery. The charge carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison.

Police are still holding more than 100 key figures in the Moscow battles in Lefortovo Prison, but they may not be charged for another 10 days, the Interfax news agency said.

Yeltsin appeared to be keeping his promise not to prosecute lawmakers who had not actually taken part in the shooting. Of the dozens of lawmakers who surrendered when police stormed the White House, only one--Khasbulatov--was still under arrest, according to Interior Minister Viktor F. Yerin.

Accusations of brutality against Moscow police mounted, however, with several Moscow deputies describing beatings they underwent after they were hauled into a police station simply for venturing out onto the street at night.

A seemingly endless line of gray-coated police, khaki-coated soldiers and special forces in black leather jackets and camouflage pants filed slowly past the coffins of their fallen comrades Thursday morning at a group funeral held in central Moscow. All held a few stems of carnations.

Yeltsin issued a statement of condolence to the relatives of those killed.

“Russia, its people, its leaders must learn a solemn lesson from the bloodshed and do everything in their power not to allow the tragedy to repeat itself,” he said.