| White House confirms schedule for judges' pay increases The government has fulfilled and exceeded the president's promise to fill the wallets of judges and regularly increase their salaries. Yesterday, German Gref announced upcoming increases in judges' salaries, saying that next year the average salary of judges will exceed 80 thousand rubles.
At the All-Russian Congress of Judges held at the end of 2004, the president promised to do everything to make the mantle of a judge more attractive to lawyers. “At the first stage, it (salary - Ed. ) will be increased two, maybe three times, and in the near future by the same amount,” Vladimir Putin said then. So government economists had no choice but to “cash out” the president’s promises. And indeed, as Alexander Gusev, general director of the Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, told Vremya Novostey, since January 1, 2005, salaries have increased by 1.2 times, and since July 2005 - by 1.8 times. As the head of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Russian Federation, German Gref, said yesterday at a government meeting, in 2006 the salaries of judges will increase by 32%, and in 2007 - by 7.5%. Considering that, according to the minister, as of December 2005 the average monthly salary of judges was 59 thousand 200 rubles, this means that in the near future it will exceed 80 thousand. And this is eight times more than judges received in 2001 (in on average 11 thousand 347 rubles). “We have fulfilled and exceeded all obligations, and the severity of this problem has been significantly reduced, it can be stated that it has been removed,” Gref noted. After all, the Federal Target Program for the Development of the Judicial System in 2002-2006 stipulated that by 2006 the average monthly salary of judges would increase to 28.5 thousand rubles.
All these increases will indeed create material incentives to attract judicial candidates. In particular, in the regions, very few lawyers can count on income of this level. But the logistics of justice still leave much to be desired. In addition, according to the heads of the higher courts, the budget does not allocate enough funds to provide judges with housing. Yuri KOLESOV |
|
