Prevention of corruption in the judicial system. Experts discuss possibilities and perspectives of their implementation

An expert discussion within the framework of the round table “Legal and organizational mechanisms of prevention of corruption in the judicial system” occurred in the Council of the Federation of the Federal Assembly of Russia on June 27. Representatives of all branches of public authority, employees of law enforcement agencies, advocates and scientists took part in the event. Konstantin Dobrynin, Deputy Chairman of the CF Committee on constitutional legislation, legal and judicial matters and development of civil society, moderated the meeting. He called the participants’ attention to the fact that the first step in the fight against corruption is drawing a strategy, and that means education. The expert elaborated: “Special additional training courses are required to develop a correct non-”money-grabbing” mentality: philosophy, political science etc. We should probably think about the creation of special universities for future judges”.

Anton Ivanov, Chairman of the Higher court of Arbitration, was the main speaker of the round table. The representative of the Judicial stated: “One should fight against corruption starting with his own self”. He specified: “When judges are appointed, the following factor should be taken into account: whether the candidate has any relatives, who conduct cases in courts of arbitration, or who occupy any positions in the public authorities of the respective city or unit”. Moreover, the head of the HCA of Russia is convinced that the increase by five years of the minimum age for occupying the position of a judge will improve the level of professional of the judges’ community. According to him, this will help to eliminate the caste system of the courts and minimize corruption (for more details see here).

Auditor of the Chamber of Accounts of Russia Sergey Movchan, in his turn, suggested creating a single body of support of activity of general jurisdiction courts and courts of arbitration. The expert explained: “Judges should only conduct justice without fulfilling administrative functions”. He pointed out that salary raises for judges and administrative employees of the courts should be included among the means to fight corruption.

Advocate Arthur Rokhlin, Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", is of the opinion that the corruption element of the proceedings may be evaluated by evidently illegal court acts, for example, due to serious breaches of procedural legislation by the judges. The parties to proceedings currently have two ways of reaction to such situations: first, to appeal against the illegal judgment to a superior instance, though not all acts can be applied against; second, to file a complaint with the qualification college of the judges. Practice shows that the vast majority of the cases of consideration of such complaints by the qualification college of the judges produce no results from the viewpoint of punishment to the judge, whose illegal conduct was recorded by the parties to the proceedings. Due to such situation, the practicing lawyers acquired a stable conviction that there is a “corporate solidarity” within the judges’ community, which, in its turn, causes deterioration of the authority of the entire judicial system. The procedure of forming of the judicial staff appears to be a cause of the situation: the strongest influence of the courts’ chairpersons and the qualification colleges of the judges themselves over ht procedure of appointment of the judges, and over the possibility to bring the latter to disciplinary liability. This results, on one side, in actual loss of the judges’ independence, and on the other side – the absence of effective reaction by the courts’ chairpersons to the unjust actions committed by their subordinate judges, and, as a consequence, a stable sense of impunity that the judges have. Arthur Rokhlin suggests correcting the situation by, inter alia, improving the system of appointment of the judges and strengthening the control over the activity of the judges as well as of the qualification colleges. The expert points out that, following the basic principle of “checks and balances”, said procedures of appointment and control should be given to different institutions.

Publications on the subject:

Video materials of the round table dated 27.06.2013
«Raidership used to be popular, and now corruption» // The Council of the Federation evaluated the bribes accepted by judges. Zakon.RU