There is no need to change the system

Journalists did not fully understand the work of the State Antimonopoly Service "Pravosudie"

One of the main conditions for the investment attractiveness of any country is the effective functioning of the judicial system. Both the liberal and the statesman will tell you this. In a broader sense, the right court in Russia has always been associated with the principles of social justice, which is an unconditional value for the population of the country.

Attempts to solve the problem of the functionality and efficiency of courts have been made for a long time. The reform of this system was initiated by Vladimir Putin as one of the main directions of state policy after the final collapse of the Soviet-style judicial vertical.

I have been closely following judicial reform, which sometimes causes controversy. The problem, obviously, is that the media do not have a proper understanding of what is being done in this regard. And a lot is being done. For example, it will soon be exactly one year since the beginning of the integration of the Supreme and Supreme Arbitration Courts. In their practice, for a very long time, various contradictions arose in the interpretation of the same norms of law, which not only hampered the development of justice in general, but also made a depressing impression on the participants in the process. They were greatly disoriented by the sometimes contradictory decisions of the courts of specializations.

As a result of the unification of the Supreme and Supreme Arbitration Courts, which, it must be said, was carried out not without resistance from arbitration judges, now such a situation can be avoided. It is likely that even some of the problematic issues on which the courts could not make a legitimate general (consensual) decision will be reviewed and a common position will finally be formed.

An important consequence of the merger of the courts will be the integration of the electronic file cabinets of the two systems. This extremely important issue will be resolved by the Judicial Department under the Supreme Court, which has been successfully implementing the electronic system of the GAS “Pravosudie” in courts of general jurisdiction for several years.

This system has recently received some criticism in the media, based on the results of an audit by the Accounts Chamber, which, along with shortcomings, also noted positive aspects in the activities of the Judicial Department, for example, the fact that its employees saved the budget 46 million rubles last year alone. Novaya Gazeta also published skeptical material (see Audit of Pravosudiya, Novaya Gazeta, No. 39 of April 15, 2015). Experts, however, understand that such a huge, geographically distributed system as GAS "Justice" is not found anywhere in the world. This is a resource that combines data on the details of all court cases and documents, along with the texts of adopted acts and decisions. This integrated system automates all components of the activities of the courts - from office work to accounting and material and technical resources. GAS "Justice" consists of 27 subsystems, its implementation has created 110 thousand automated jobs, the system itself is served by more than 1.2 thousand people. About 3,000 courts throughout the country were provided with modern equipment and communication channels. The Internet portal of the GAS "Pravosudie" was created with the official websites of all federal courts of general jurisdiction and world courts. The portal's unified database includes more than 10 million cases today, any of them can be found using a simple search.

The organizers of the trials assure that the system of video broadcasting of court sessions has already been launched within the framework of the State Arbitration Court, and soon online broadcasting of trials in courts of general jurisdiction will become commonplace. The first Internet broadcast of the meeting was recently conducted by the Belgorod Regional Court, which was chosen as a test site for testing equipment. In total, up to 100 broadcasts can be viewed on the Internet at the same time.

One way or another, but at the moment GAS "Justice" is installed in all federal courts of general jurisdiction. And this system ensures the very openness of the judiciary to civil society, which was mentioned by the initiators of reforming the industry.

Due to openness, which is not obvious, but very important, it is assumed that the GAC stimulates the growth of legal awareness of Russians, the elimination of legal nihilism and other negative consequences of an unbalanced judicial system. In this regard, the Judicial Department is just working to increase the accountability of the judiciary to public institutions and the state apparatus, in particular, by creating a single electronic database of decisions of arbitrations and courts of general jurisdiction.

Today, the integration of the courts under the leadership of Vyacheslav Lebedev, head of the joint Armed Forces and the Supreme Arbitration Court, is still ongoing. No one removed the obligation to continue the structural merger of the two courts and from the Judicial Department. Experts understand how much this is a colossal work of fundamental importance. In the end, judging by the statements of the leadership of the Supreme Court, it is planned to finally achieve a uniform interpretation and, most importantly, the application of the rules of law, which will also guide the lower courts.

Alexey Mukhin,
Director of the Center for Political Information