MOSCOW, May 21 (RAPSI) – Russia’s upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, on Wednesday officialy appointed Vyacheslav Lebedev as the head of the newly formed Supreme Court.

His nomination was greenlit by the constitutional legislation committee and unanimously supported by the qualification board.

Last February, President Vladimir Putin signed a law merging the Supreme Court with the Supreme Commercial Court. There will be 170 judges overall. New judicial branches will be established in the Supreme Court: one for dealing with economic disputes, and one for military personnel.

Currently, the Russian judicial system has two branches. General jurisdiction courts consider civil lawsuits, crimes and cases involving administrative offenses. This branch of the system is headed by the Supreme Court. Commercial courts, headed by the Supreme Commercial Court, hear economic disputes between legal entities pertaining to civil, administrative and other relationships.