Translated material
Creative process
Human rights officials visited the Supreme Court
The Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia, Vladimir Lukin, yesterday brought his colleagues, regional commissioners, to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation - the main building of Russian justice - to see, show themselves and ask questions to the country's chief judge, Vyacheslav Lebedev. At the same time, as Mr. Lukin himself noted, of all the authorities proposed for visiting, the commissioners chose the Supreme Court, deciding that only its chairman could help them solve the problems with which citizens turned to human rights defenders. Mr. Lebedev answered some questions on the spot, and wrote down some to later discuss in more detail with his fellow judges, and some left him amazed.Commissioners were pleased with the recently restored and renovated Supreme Court (SC) building. “It’s a good, even enviably good building for us,” summed up Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia Vladimir Lukin at the end of the tour, which the Chairman of the Supreme Council personally conducted. More than forty commissioners from different regions of the country eventually gathered in one of the historical courtrooms of the Supreme Court, where the trial in the case of the State Emergency Committee once took place.
“You and I are constitutional bodies. We were created by the founding fathers of the Constitution, and we are all called upon to protect human rights,” said Mr. Lukin, referring to the common tasks of justice and commissioners. “The judicial system, of course, is a much larger institution, but our goals are the same.” Despite this, according to the commissioner, the relationship between his colleagues and the courts “is not always easy to develop.”
Mr. Lukin complained that although the Constitution and the federal constitutional law “On the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation” provide this category of human rights defenders with participation in trials, the procedural codes - the Code of Criminal Procedure, the Code of Civil Procedure, the Arbitration Procedure Code - do not include such norms. Only the Supreme Court can eliminate this contradiction between the laws, Mr. Lukin said, and turned to Mr. Lebedev with a request to submit to the State Duma the necessary amendments regulating the procedural role of the commissioners. “The Constitution defines the procedural powers of the commissioner. Either he himself, or his representative by proxy, can participate in trials,” agreed the head of the judicial community. But he immediately reminded Mr. Lukin that at one time the Supreme Court tried to resolve this conflict, but then no one listened to his opinion : “You and I already discussed this issue when the draft Code of Criminal Procedure was being prepared. It was prepared quickly, however, but it was still discussed. When the Supreme Court raised this issue, we did not agree with it for the second time.” The Chairman of the Supreme Court offered the commissioners another way to solve their problem: “You have a very high position, and you yourself can raise this issue with the deputies or the government. Let one of them come up with a legislative initiative. And let those who submit this project. you can say that the Supreme Court does not object.”
The Commissioners for Human Rights were confident that judges do not bear any responsibility for the misdeeds and offenses they commit and are not subject to disciplinary liability, which was reported to the Chairman of the Supreme Court yesterday. From the expression on Mr. Lebedev’s face, one might think that such words offended him greatly. “Why aren’t they involved? Last year alone, 360 judges were subject to disciplinary action, 80 of them were removed from power,” the chief judge reported to his colleagues in the defense of human rights. According to Mr. Lebedev, most of these judges were punished for violating reasonable deadlines for considering cases. This is a colossal problem of domestic justice, which has become the reason for sharp criticism of the Russian judicial system from the European Court of Human Rights. The Vremya Novostey newspaper has written about this more than once , and just the other day President Putin signed a law giving citizens the right to file complaints about violation of reasonable deadlines for consideration of cases and non-execution of court decisions to Russian courts. But, as Mr. Lebedev once again emphasized, no one will be deprived of the right to apply to the ECHR. “The European Court is also overloaded. Cases have been pending there for years!” - explained the head of the Armed Forces.
The problem of judicial red tape, as Mr. Lebedev noted yesterday, often stems from another problem - improper distribution of the workload between judges. Thus, most justices of the peace are overloaded, but district judges, having thrown off cases of minor complexity, have the opportunity to “work thoughtfully and creatively.” And some of them are even forced to languish from idleness.
“The Code of Criminal Procedure provides for the possibility of hearing a case by three professional judges,” said Mr. Lebedev. - Some of the district courts were unable to provide this. We increased their staff, but in the end this form of litigation turned out to be unclaimed. At first we wanted to remove it from the Code of Criminal Procedure altogether. This option did not work for us. But there is another thing: we need to make sure that the judicial district does not coincide with the administrative-territorial division.” The essence of what Mr. Lebedev proposes is to redraw the judicial districts, uniting several districts under the jurisdiction of each. This, in his opinion, will help solve two problems at once - redistributing the workload between judges, if necessary, and strengthening guarantees of their independence: “Then judges will have less (here Mr. Lebedev thought for a second, choosing the right expression) to interact, perhaps, with local and municipal authorities."
The human rights commissioners asked questions one after another, worried because they were running out of time and had so much to say. Human rights activists criticized the Federal Migration Service, which issued certain recommendations on establishing the fact of permanent residence in the Russian Federation, and the courts, which often refuse to accept applications from foreign citizens who want to establish this fact. They complained about cases of “politicization of the courts” and were glad to hear that the head of the Supreme Court considers this unacceptable, depriving the court of the opportunity to be impartial and objective. The commissioners listed a whole range of problems that citizens face when solving housing problems, and the chairman of the Supreme Court promised that in the near future this issue will be considered by a special civil panel of the court.
Vyacheslav Lebedev reminded the commissioners that they themselves have the right and even must, due to their duties, refer all controversial issues to the Supreme Court, which will be able to discuss them, generalize practice, analyze legislation and adopt resolutions of plenums, and they will guide all courts of the country when making decisions for specific cases. “Even our foreign colleagues are surprised and want to learn from our experience in resolving controversial issues both in legislation and in judicial practice. This is a real creative process for us,” said the Chairman of the Supreme Council.