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Work on a single procedural code continues

The website Pravo.ru has reported that, at its last meeting on 8 December, the Committee of the State Duma on Civil, Criminal, Commercial, and Procedural Legislation decided to endorse the unified Code of Civil Procedure that a conference in Yekaterinburg completed in October.

The meeting included the vice-chairman of the Supreme Qualifying Collegium of the Russian Federation, A. A. Sboev, the deputy of the General Director of the Judicial Department under the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, A. A. Obarchuk, and the president of the Supreme Court, Vyacheslav Lebedev.

Chief justice Lebedev opened the meeting with remarks about the reform’s impact on procedural rights, especially the need to unify, simplify, and accelerate the pace of procedural law without sacrificing quality. He stated, for example, that the unified code will simplify legal procedures in uncomplicated debt collection cases when amounts are less than RUB 200,000.

The authors of the unified Civil Procedural Code expect that the strain on judges will lessen because of the simplified legal proceedings, especially when no complicated analysis is necessary. Furthermore, the changes will serve to increase the level of justice.

As in the arbitration process, the proposed Civil Procedural Code lists cases that require pretrial procedures. For example, cases involving insurance claims, infants, and real estate that is marital property will need certain types of pretrial proof in order to avoid legal abuse. 

The Supreme Court also wishes to relieve the district courts from preparing motivations for decisions in order to focus on the operative portion of decisions. Judges should prepare a final decision, according to the Supreme Court, only if one of the participants in the case requests it. This feature of the reform has generated debate in the legal community because many experts believe this simplification actually will complicate matters if one of the parties disputes a decision. Furthermore, given the low quality of district court decisions, the risk of making unjust decisions may increase.

Chief Justice Lebedev noticed several unique features in the proposed amendments, including the possibility of audioprotocoling, with supplementary written protocols. The Supreme Court also proposes to reduce the term for filing applications for appeal in civil proceedings from one month to 15 days. Chief Justice Lebedev noted that the database system will continue without change. Nevertheless, posting the decisions of the general jurisdiction courts on the Internet require more effort because of the need to protect privacy.

This autumn, the Supreme Court also made several proposed amendments regarding the arbitration process. In many instances, the amendments to simplify civil cases were based on the draft changes in arbitration procedures. Furthermore, the Council of Judges relied on the action plan of judges when drafting their reforms concerning certain matters of court procedure.

It appears as though the amendments will increase the quality of proceedings. Currently, many cases involving one judge do not actually go to trial on time, as a result, they not only face delays but possibly hurried decisions that may be flawed. Such a situation is unacceptable.

Overall, the legal community has received the reforms positively, even though everyone understands that the risk of delayed decisions remains.

The amendments will go before the State Duma in the beginning of 2015.

The record of the meetings is available at: http://www.ssrf.ru/page/15143/detail/.