| The judges practiced speeches in the Senate for speeches before the president Russian servants of Themis, who clearly did not like the latest legislative initiatives of the Federation Council regarding the judicial system, yesterday were able to express their indignation to the senators for the first time.
“We will get controlled justice,” they were indignant at parliamentary hearings held in the upper house, where amendments to the legislation proposed by Senate Speaker Sergei Mironov were discussed. Mr. Mironov, as you know, considers it necessary to change the procedure for staffing the High Qualification Board of Judges, and if the project is adopted, the judges will find themselves in the minority in “their own house”, and will still be appointed by the same Senate. It is clear that such guardianship seems unnecessary to the servants of Themis, but yesterday’s meeting did not help determine the balance of power during the upcoming discussion of Speaker Mironov’s initiatives in the State Duma. Representatives of the Prosecutor General's Office, who, along with the security wing in the presidential administration, are suspected by judges of preparing these bills, chose not to participate in the debate.
So at the hearings, the speakers were mainly representatives of the judiciary, each of whom tried to prove in approximately the same words how the judicial system, and with it our entire country, would lose. “Why is it necessary to reform the Supreme Court of Justice, if only two years ago the order of its recruitment was changed, and it did not even have time to work with the new composition?” Chairman of the Council of Judges Yuri Sidorenko was indignant. “We are only at this congress of judges, which will begin on November 30, they had to elect its new composition." Then the chairman of the VKKS, Valentin Kuznetsov, took the floor, also critically speaking about the new initiatives and reporting on the work of the qualification boards. According to him, they are already very critical of their colleagues - over the past three and a half years, the powers of 181 judges have been prematurely terminated based on complaints received. And according to information from the Prosecutor General’s Office, Mr. Kuznetsov said, from 2001 to September 2004, 18 criminal cases against judges were considered in Russian courts: in connection with charges of making deliberately unfair decisions, taking bribes, and three cases of violating the rules road traffic. In this case, only one person will receive a real sentence. According to Mr. Kuznetsov, over the past period the Prosecutor General applied to the Higher Qualification Court 38 times seeking consent to initiate a criminal case against the judge. And only in eight cases was he denied.
Representatives of the arbitration system also criticized Mr. Mironov’s initiatives. “Soon the bodies of the judicial community will be left without judges at all,” Oleg Boykov, deputy chairman of the Supreme Arbitration Court, was indignant. And the chairman of the Moscow Arbitration Court, Alla Bolshova, cited Article 5 of the law “On the Judicial System of the Russian Federation,” according to which “in the Russian Federation, laws and other regulatory legal acts that abolish or diminish the independence of courts and the independence of judges cannot be issued.”
As for representatives of other branches of government, the Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Legal and Judicial Issues of the Upper House, Anatoly Lyskov, spoke on behalf of the Federation Council, having already repeatedly criticized the initiatives of his superiors. In his impulse to defend Themis, he even proposed adopting a law regulating the procedure for criticism of courts by officials and almost introducing criminal liability for those who violated this taboo.
Having let off steam and meeting no resistance, the judges agreed with the resolution of the hearings, in which there was not a word about Mironov’s amendments. It is obvious that for them, yesterday's visit to the Federation Council was more likely a preparation for their congress in November, at which they are waiting for Vladimir Putin - during a personal meeting, representatives of the judicial community expect to persuade the president in their direction. Yuri KOLESOV |
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