Jurist who revived the abolished Justice Ministry and directed the codification of Soviet legislation
The Latin word justitia means justice — which is fairness. He made this principle his lifelong guide.
When the USSR Ministry of Justice was re-established in 1970, fourteen years after its abolition, Terebilov was the man entrusted with its reconstruction. As Minister of Justice from 1970 to 1984, he oversaw the review of over 400,000 normative acts, producing the 50-volume Collected Legislation of the USSR and the 11-volume Code of Laws, and steered the 1979 Law on the Bar, the first statute to define the legal status of the Soviet legal profession. Appointed Chairman of the USSR Supreme Court in 1984, he worked to strengthen judicial independence and advance the rehabilitation of victims of repression, but was compelled to resign in 1989 after corruption allegations surfaced during the Uzbek Cotton Scandal investigation. In retirement he taught the moral foundations of criminal procedure at Moscow State University.
Career Timeline
- 1939Prosecutor, Pargolovo District, Leningrad Region
- 1941Commissar of workers' detachment, Leningrad defence
- 1945Prosecutor, Primorsky District, Leningrad
- 1949Senior Researcher, All-Union Institute of Criminology
- 1957Senior Assistant to USSR Prosecutor General; Deputy Head of Investigative Directorate
- 1962Deputy Chairman, USSR Supreme Court
- 1970USSR Minister of Justice
- 1984Chairman, USSR Supreme Court
- 1989Docent, Faculty of Law, Moscow State University