"A Very Secret Justice"

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On February 27, 2022, a fire broke out in the Smolensk police department. Then the regional media wrote that the "gang of teenagers" wanted to "destroy the building with Molotov cocktails" - for this they would allegedly be paid 60 thousand rubles. Already on March 1, the local Investigative Committee reported that several people had been detained in connection with the case. They were charged with attempted destruction of property and hooliganism.

On December 27, 10 months after their arrest, the Zadneprovsky District Court of Smolensk passed a sentence on them, but its text did not appear on the court’s website. When Mediazona journalists approached the press service of the court, the court refused to say what punishment the convicts were sentenced to.

And so it was possible? By law - yes

The texts of the verdicts must be posted on the Internet no later than one month after the entry into force - this is stated in Article 15 of the Federal Law "On Providing Access to Information on the Activities of the Courts in the Russian Federation". The exception is judicial acts in cases "affecting the rights and legitimate interests of minors." The court referred to this provision.

“Indeed, the law especially protects the interests of minors,” says lawyer Artem Kutlovsky. “International norms enshrine the right of a minor to confidentiality of criminal proceedings: the trial must be held in camera, and information about the child is not subject to disclosure either by the authorities or the media.”

This applies to decisions to hold closed court hearings and not to publish judgments in such cases so as not to reveal the identity of the teenagers. “By the letter of the law, the court is right. The rules say that this is permissible, and even require this from the judges, says Kutlovsky. “But how it corresponds to other principles of justice is a big question.”

What is wrong with it?

By deciding not to disclose the verdict in this case, the court violated the principle of publicity.

“The publicity of the trial is a fundamental, constitutional principle. When two conflicting principles collide, we must strive to find a middle ground, a solution and a compromise,” says the lawyer. In the same case, the court hearings were closed, and all documents were not available.

Shutting down trials involving children and teenagers is a common practice, Kutlovsky said, but it shouldn't be "exceptional." “Very little information has been published on this case. We can only guess what was in it. We do not know either the type or the size of the punishment, the sentence for adult convicts is also closed. There is no information about the defenders. This, it turns out, is a completely secret justice, ”says the lawyer.

According to him, the number of cases with closed sentences has not noticeably changed recently, but some courts, for example, prefer not to publish cases under the administrative article on discrediting the army - this allegedly affects the "security of the state." “When the state wants to close information in politically motivated cases, it will always find a reason for this,” Kutlovsky said.