Summary Prosedures and Optimization of Commercial Court Proceedings in Russia

• Author: S. Nikitin - M. Patsatsiya
• Position: Russian State University of Justice (Moscow, Russia)
• Pages: 108-131

BRICS LAW JOURNAL Volume VI (2019) Issue 2

COMMENTS

SuMMaRY PRoSEDuRES anD oPTIMIZaTIon

oF CoMMERCIaL CouRT PRoCEEDInGS In RuSSIa

SERGEY NIKITIN,

Russian State University of Justice (Moscow, Russia)

MALKHAZ PATSATSIYA,

Russian State University of Justice (Moscow, Russia)

DOI: 10.21684/2412-2343-2019-6-2-108-131

This article deals with the problems involved in implementing simplied forms of legal

proceedings in the Russian civil process, which is one of the important directions for

optimizing commercial court proceedings. The study is largely based on the analysis of

previously unpublished statistical information on the commercial courts of three districts

for the period of 2016–2018, showing the results of their procedural activities in the

framework of the procedures of simplied and writ proceedings in the context of court

data of the commercial cour t system as a whole. The obtained results are highlighted

taking into account domestic, foreign and international experience, doctrinal approaches

and the existing need for the optimization of commercial court proceedings. The authors

substantiate the conclusion that the consideration of cases in the procedures of simplied

production facilitates signicantly reducing the caseload burden on the commercial

courts of rst instance, both by simplifying the procedures for the consideration of these

cases and by drawing up judicial acts on them. The article formulates proposals for the

development of the current commercial procedural law, in particular the proposal to

unify the procedural order of commercial court cases on the recovery of compulsor y

payments and sanctions. It further proposes possible variants of such unication.

Keywords: forensic statistics; caseload; summar y proceedings; writ proceedings; court

proceedings in commercial litigation; court proceedings renement.

SERGEY NI KITIN, MALKHA Z PATSATSIYA 109

Recommended citation: Sergey Nikitin & Malkhaz Patsatsiya, Summary Prosedures

and Optimization of Commercial Court Proceedings in Russia, 6(2) BRICS Law Journal

108–131 (2019).

At the present stage, one of the key problems with the Russian judicial system,

including the system of commercial courts, is the need for optimization, which will

demand overcoming the excessive caseload burden on judges and court sta.

A heavy caseload negatively aects the quality of justice, signicantly increases

the likelihood of judicial errors, especially in complex and non-standard cases, leads

to sta turnover of the judiciary, especially court sta, and ultimately undermines

the prestige of the judicial profession and citizens’ condence in justice.

In this regard, it should be noted that the Committee of Ministers of the Council

of Europe in Recommendation No. R (86) 12 concerning measures to prevent and

reduce the excessive workload in the courts, adopted on 16 September 1986, outlined

measures to prevent and reduce excessive caseload as one of the key objectives of

the judicial policy of Member States.1

Currently, the commercial courts are dealing with a huge number of cases. More-

over, in recent years there has been a signicant increase. So, whereas in 2013 the

commercial courts of the rst, appeal and cassation instances dealt with 1,737,213

cases, in 2017 they dealt with 2,164,078 cases. Thus, the increase was about 20% in

just four years.2

Although the overwhelming majority of cases are considered by the courts in

compliance with applicable legal procedures, and in established and fairly short time

periods, court work is often judged in the society and by the mass media through

consideration of the results of complex, high-prole cases, where the probability

of error is much greater than in relatively simple, standard cases. Hence, a negative

opinion as to the quality of the work of the Russian judicial system is sometimes

heard both in Russia and abroad.

The work of the commercial court judges in modern conditions is in many ways

reminiscent of the work on a conveyor, where it is necessary to perform a huge

number of very dierent tasks in a shor t time: simple and complex, standard and

unique. With such tension, of course there are breakdowns, and mistakes, primarily

in complex, not standard, cases, especially if the judge is faced with gaps in the legal

regulations of economic relations.

1 Совет Европы и Россия: Сборник документов [Council of Europe and Russia: Collection of Documents]

684–686 (Moscow: Yuridicheskaya literatura, 2004).

2 See Сводные статистические сведения о деятельности федеральных арбитражных судов за 2017 г.

[Summary statistics on the activities of federal commercial courts in 2017] (Apr. 28, 2019), available at

http://www.cdep.ru/index.php?id=79&item=4430; Сводные статистические сведения о деятельности

федеральных арбитражных судов за 2013 г. [Summary statistics on the activities of federal commercial

courts for 2013] (Apr. 28, 2019), available at http://www.cdep.ru/index.php?id=79&item=2884.