Zalina Lalieva

Lalieva worked as a lawyer for the Parliament of South Ossetia since 2005.^[1]

After the election of Anatoly Bibilov in the 2017 presidential election, Lalieva was named the new Minister of Justice.^[1] During her appointment, Bibilov praised her "independent opinion", as she did not belong to his United Ossetia party, as well as her principledness.^[2] Lalieva called the appointment "unexpected" but that she welcomed the post.^[2] Her deputy was Marina Bestayeva, who had served as acting Minister of Justice between Bibilov's election on April 9, and Lalieva's appointment on June 7.^[2] One of her first acts was to ban Jehovah Witnesses in South Ossetia, branding the group an extremist organization, and allowing the unrestricted searches and seizures of suspected Jehovah Witnesses.^[3]

On July 11, 2019, inmates at a South Ossetian penal colony started a hunger strike due to poor conditions.^[4] After failing to negotiate with the inmates, employees in Lalieva's ministry force fed the inmates, and beat those that continued their strike.^[5][6] On July 7, 2020, 20 inmates of the same penal colony attempted to perform a mass suicide by slitting their wrists, however, each of them where forcefully given medical care and none died.^[7] Shortly afterwards 20 of the 34 members of Parliament put forward a motion requesting a vote of no confidence to oust Lalieva, however, the vote was blocked by the head of the Council of Ministers, Erik Pukhaev.^[8][9]

In 2019 Lalieva met with her Russian counterpart Alexander Konovalov in Moscow to discuss creating a unified pension program, penal system, and bailiff service.^[10] In 2021 Lalieva met with her Russian counterpart Konstantin Chuichenko over video-call to sign a Cooperation Program for 2022-2023 in the fields of digitalization, departmental rule-making, monitoring of law enforcement, forensic examination, state accounting and systematization of regulatory legal acts, etc.^[11]

Lalieva survived a mass sacking of ministers by Bibilov in 2021, in the wake of the Murder of Inal Djabiev by excessive police force.^[12] She would be replaced by the new President Alan Gagloev in favor of Oleg Gagloev, following Bibilov's defeat in the 2022 presidential election.^[5]