At present, the Russian judicial system is in a state of
grave crisis. This is partly connected with a sharp increase in workload for
judges. With the number of judges stable (about 15,000), between 1991 and 1995,
the number of cases considered by courts was growing on average by 16% per year
(in 1994 and 1995, courts convicted a million people a year); during 1995, the
number of civil cases increased by 150% and reached 2.5 millions. A 30% increase
was recorded in cases concerning the collapse of so called “pyramid schemes”
(fraudulent banks and firms). In addition, in 1995, general jurisdiction courts
considered 2 million administrative cases. A sharp growth in the number of cases
and the broadening of court authority was not, however, accompanied with an
enlargement in staff and technical re-equipment of courts. The financial
situation of courts is getting worse every day. Courts, like many other state
bodies, have gone bankrupt. The planned 1996 allocation of funds from the
federal budget (1.9 trillions of rubles) is only able to cover one-third of
general jurisdiction court needs. It has already happened in 1995 that courts
did not have enough money to pay for communal and post expenses. Judges as well
as other justice employees often do not receive their salaries.
In November 1995, the technical staff in eight Moscow
municipal courts went on strike. A letter from the St.Petersburg Council of
Judges to the Russian President stated that many judges in St. Petersburg had to
postpone cases for 4 or 5 months due to the lack of resources [8].
A letter from the Council of Judges in Krasnodar Krai, also addressed to the
President reads: “it is very probable that many courts will stop functioning
because of the lack of financing; electricity, telephones and heating could be
cut off” [9]. Letters from other regions report
that courts have no money for paper clips and paper, for travel expenses of
witnesses and for forwarding closed cases to the court of appeal. Premises which
previously belonged to regional CPSU bodies have not yet been transferred to
courts.
Because of financial and organizational difficulties many
courts have to postpone criminal and civil cases which result in violation of
the basic constitutional rights: the rights to court defense and a fair trial.
According to the Russian Council of Judges, an unjust and unlawful principle for
financing courts by the RF Ministry of Justice exacerbates the situation [10].
Consequently, they proposed the establishment of a Judicial Department at the
Supreme Court to solve organizational and financial problems and provide courts
with information on the methodology of court activities [11].
The realization of the different elements of the Concept of Judicial Reform is
carried out very slowly.
As early as the beginning of 1995, the Judicial Reform
Council under the Russian President recommended the dissemination of jury trials
into the regions where administrative and judicial authorities had taken such
initiatives. It was proposed to establish jury trials beginning in July 1995 in
Moscow, St.Petersburg, Karelia and Chelyabinsk region, and then from January 1,
1996, in Belgorod, Kaliningrad, Kaluga, Nizhni Novgorod, Oryol, Penza, Samara
and Tver regions. However, this was postponed “due to the lack of resources”
despite the fact that the amount of necessary resources is insignificant when
compared to resources spent on the enormous prison population or such actions as
the campaign in Chechnya.
The Law on Bailiffs and the Law on the Judicial System,
developed under the supervision of S.A.Pashin have not yet been adopted.
“Constitutional provisions of judicial power, its
independence from legislative and executive powers; the impossibility of
establishing emergency courts; independence, irremovability from office and
inviolability of judges; equality of everyone in face of the law and court, the
right to judicial defense, openness of court proceedings and jury trials” were
all developed in the draft law on the Russian judicial system.
“In accordance with the draft law, the judicial system
constitutes federal courts and justices of the peace, who are RF subjects.
The three branches of the judicial system — the
Constitutional Court, the Supreme Court and other courts of general
jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court of Arbitration — should operate on
the basis of common constitutional principles of justice and judicial status...
Subjects of the Federation are given the right to come up
with a legislative initiative on transferring federal justices of the peace
under their jurisdiction... Justices of the peace will be appointed by their
legislative (representative) body rather than the Russian President and the
activities of corresponding judges will be financed from the federal budget.
Subjects of the Federation are also entitled to establish their own courts
(“local courts”) outside the judicial system of the Russian Federation.
In an attempt to overcome the problem of the lack of judges
in Russian courts whilst at the same time stopping the widespread practice of
appointing lay assessors as temporarily practising judges and allowing heads of
local administrations to unlawfully appoint judges, the project creates the
possibility for involving retired judges who are stil members of the judges’
community, giving them the status of honorable judges.
In order to form a qualified and professional reserve of
judges the project proposes to introduce a new figure for our judicial system —
a magistrate — that is, a lawyer who upon graduation takes an intensive
course of training and practice in courts, procuracy and the bar, and then
becomes a state employee, entering the reserve of potential judges” [33].
At present, the draft law on the judicial system is at the
Conciliation Committee of the State Duma and the Federation Council. But, since
sufficient resources have not been allocated for the normal functioning of
existing courts this draft law is unlikely to be realized in the near future.
The actions of high officials from the Presidential
Administration who dissolved the Judicial Reform Department in April 1995 look
even more bewildering. According to human rights activists, the judicial
corporation and the majority of members of the Presidential Judicial Reform
Council, the dismantling of this structure with its unique possibilities for
carrying out reform and comprehensive experience of its practical implementation
is one of the severest blows for reformers and may result in preventing changes
which were so inspiring in the beginning.
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