Putin’s Supreme Court

Vladimir Putin is making drastic changes to the Judicial. During the Petersburg economic forum he suggested merging the Higher Court of Arbitration (HCA) with the Supreme Court (SC). The experts see no connection between the Presidential idea and the goals of the judicial reform and regard the declaration as a political move.

Academic disputes regarding the merger of the two higher courts began even before the Constitution was adopted in 1993. However, most legists of authority, including Anton Ivanov, Chairman of the HCA, were taken completely by surprise by the Friday declaration of V.Putin. The Head of the HCA said “no merger is being discussed yet”.

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Most experts believe that the merger of the SC and HCA will produce no benefits: the plenums of both courts used to adopt joint resolutions on the most important matters. However, Alexander Bolomatov, Associated Partner of the Law Firm "YUST", states that the mechanism is not efficient anymore: the latest resolution by the joint plenum was passed in 2010, and other mechanisms of elaboration of joint positions do not function at all. Mr. Bolomatov goes on: “The practices of the higher courts diverge more and more. For example, the HCA practice allows cession of rights under credits, and the SC practice does not”. But the experts believe that legal fixing of the higher courts’ obligation to hold such joint plenums would be sufficient.

The merger of the SC and the HCA would require amending the Constitution. The experts say that the other obstacle is the comparative size of both bodies: the staff of the SC is several times greater than that of the HCA. According to them, if the complete merger occurs, the central apparatus of the SC may absorb not only the HCA but also the entire system of the courts of arbitration.

The merger may reduce the quality of the legal procedure and the business climate in Russia. The Russian legal system is not popular with the business even in its present state, large companies, including strategic ones, resolve their issues in English courts. A top manager of a large state-owned bank complains: “The President should support the competition of the courts by developing their specialization and not by pouring them into a single vat”.

According to the source of RBC Daily in the President’s Administration, the merger was decided upon quite some time ago, and the St. Pete forum was only a venue to declare he decision. The source believes that the law, which is required for the merger to take place, will be adopted in early autumn. The expert, who is close to the authors of the administrative reform of the early 2000’s, is perplexed: such reforms require deep analysis of the bodies’ powers; the coordination may take years as the paralysis of the court system is beneficial to no one.

Apparently, Putin’s intentions are of a political nature. The sources of RBC Daily in the Russian Government confirm the guesses of most political scientists: the reform is done for the sake of Dmitry Medvedev, who was long planned to occupy the highest judicial position in the country. However, the position is no sinecure: the supreme court instance of the country will have a hard time preparing for the next election period of 2017-2018. During the “flower revolutions” it was the supreme court instances that revoked the decisions by the election committees, which declared the successors to the incumbent authorities the winners.

It is possible that Vladimir Putin’s declaration does not refer to any reform plans at all. Perhaps the suggestion is just a loud declaration for the foreign audience, which is intended for diverting the attention away from the inconsistent measures by the authorities to improve the investment climate.

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International experience

Russia inherited the two higher courts from the Soviet judicial system. Ukraine, Belorussia and Uzbekistan also have Supreme and Higher Economic Courts. Judicial authorities of most developed countries are clearly specialized by branches of law. In Germany, for example, the Federal Constitutional Court watches over the compliance with the Constitution. The supreme court instance is the Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe, the courts of appeal – the higher land courts, the first instance courts – the land courts, the lowest level of the judicial system – the courts of administrations, special courts – the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig, the Federal Court on labor disputes, the Federal Public Court and the Federal Financial court in Munich. Most judicial proceedings are the lands’ responsibility. The Federal courts mostly review cases and check the lands’ courts’ judgments for formal legality.

The judicial system of the USA is original. The federal courts consider all disputes, which arise from the relations regulated by the Code of Laws of the United States, and all cases, which fall within the jurisdiction of the federal agencies (for example, the cases on crimes committed in the territory of several states, which are the FBI jurisdiction). The system of the federal courts consists of several levels of hierarchy. The Supreme Court of the USA is the highest. Federal magistrates are created under the federal district courts, which have auxiliary functions or conduct small offence cases, punishable by up to 1 year of prison or 1 thousand USD of fine. Also, additional bodies are created under each district court since 1978, which consider bankruptcy cases. All other cases are dealt with by the state courts, which exist in parallel and are created under the laws of each state. For example, the Supreme Court of the State of New York is active in said state, which is essentially the first instance court. Its name indicates that it is a court of a higher level that administrative and local courts. The highest-level court in the state is the New York State Court of Appeals. As a rule, federal courts do not review the judgments of the state courts. Only the Supreme Court of the USA may determine whether the Constitution was breached by the judgment.

In France, there is a general three-level court system and specialized courts: prud’homale courts (labor disputes), various criminal courts (for example, underage), maritime, commercial, military, administrative. All specialized courts are integrated into the general system by the mechanisms of appeals with the court of appeal.

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