451° of procedural reform

More than a year ago, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation developed a draft law substantially reforming the procedural legislation. In the process of consideration by the State Duma of the Russian Federation the document was amended, but most of the novelties included in it remained in the final text signed by the President.

The amended law excludes the notion of “subordination” and replaces it with “competence”. At the same time, there is a possibility to transfer cases accepted for proceedings with violation of competence from arbitration courts to courts of general jurisdiction and vice versa.

Arbitration proceedings

Changes the procedure for resolving applications for challenge in the arbitration process. Now such applications should be considered by the chairman of the court, his deputies or chairmen of the composition. In practice, these applications were rarely granted, but they were used as a “foul of last resort” to postpone the hearing. Once the amendments come into force, the challenge will be considered by the challenged judges.

One of the most notable changes is the change in court representation. The norm on the availability of legal education for representatives of legal entities appeared in the Code of Administrative Proceedings of the Russian Federation several years ago. Now similar requirements will be included in the Arbitration and Civil Procedure Codes of the Russian Federation. Only attorneys and other persons with higher legal education or a degree in law will be able to become representatives in courts, except for district courts and magistrates. Exceptions are made for patent attorneys in disputes related to the legal protection of intellectual property and means of individualization, arbitration managers in the performance of their duties in bankruptcy cases and trade unions in labor disputes. However, their managers will still be able to speak on behalf of the organizations.

The terms of consideration of cases have been extended from three to six months, as a general rule, and from six to nine months due to the special complexity of the case or the significant number of participants in the process. In practice, arbitration courts rarely met the three-month deadline for hearing a case, so this amendment simply brings the law into line with reality.

A judge would be given the right to determine the “length of speeches” in court hearings. Taking into account that schedules are often set aside for each session for five minutes, such an amendment may lead to a significant infringement of the rights of participants in the process. In addition, the presiding officer has the right to limit the speech of a participant in the trial.

The threshold of the price of the claim for the cases considered in the order of the simplified manufacture, – from five hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand rubles for legal bodies and from two hundred fifty thousand to four hundred thousand rubles for individual businessmen is raised. Thus intervention in business of the third parties which are not declaring independent requirements on a dispute subject, ceases to be the basis for transition to business consideration under the general rules of claim manufacture.

The category of disputes on which the judicial order can be given out changes: the requirement price increases from four hundred thousand to five hundred thousand roubles, thus the indication that obligations are recognized by the debtor thus is excluded.

The sole consideration of appeals against the determination of arbitration courts is provided for. An exception is made for rulings on bankruptcy cases, appeals against which will still be considered by a panel of three judges.

Courts of general jurisdiction

A court of law, if it determines that an application to it in a civil case should be considered by it as an administrative proceeding, may proceed to such consideration and vice versa.

The list of judicial acts of prejudicial importance has been expanded. Now they will include not only the sentences, but also other court rulings in criminal cases, and in courts of general jurisdiction – and also court rulings in the case of an administrative offense.

The deadlines for filing an application for reimbursement of court expenses have been reduced from six to three months. At the same time, the law regulates the conditions and procedure for compensation of court expenses of third parties.

The person appealing to the court of general jurisdiction, as well as the participant of the arbitration process, will now have to send to other participants of the case copies of the statement of claim, appeal and attached documents.

The Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation includes a new chapter regulating conciliation procedures and amicable settlement agreement, which mainly enshrined in the law the rules that have already been applied in court practice. A new ground for mandatory suspension of proceedings was also added – the establishment by the court of a term for conciliation of the parties (before the expiration of this term). This wording creates room for abuse and allows the court to violate reasonable terms of consideration of cases. The same right will be granted to the court and the Code of Administrative Proceedings of the Russian Federation.

The order of consideration of cassation complaints in courts of general jurisdiction is essentially changed. The institution of “continuous” cassation, which has long existed in the system of arbitration courts, is being introduced. Cassation appeals will be filed through the court of first instance, which together with the case will send it to the court of cassation instance, which will be the cassation courts of general jurisdiction that are currently being created. All cassation appeals and submissions filed without formal infringement will be accepted for consideration.

Cassation appeals and submissions, other than complaints and submissions against court orders, decisions and rulings of justices of the peace, decisions and rulings of district courts (including appeals), decisions and rulings in cases considered under summary proceedings, will be heard in court by a panel of judges.

The grounds for the annulment or amendment of court judgments in cassation procedure will be the inconsistency of the court’s conclusions contained in the appealed court judgment with the actual circumstances of the case established by the courts of first and appeal instances, as well as violation or incorrect application of substantive or procedural law, and not only significant violations, as provided by the current version of the law.

The institution of “blanket” cassation is also being introduced into the Code of Administrative Proceedings of the Russian Federation. In addition, the CAS of the Russian Federation has been supplemented with new chapters regulating proceedings for the recognition of information posted on information and telecommunications networks, including the Internet, information the dissemination of which is prohibited, as well as proceedings for the recognition of information materials as extremist.

These numerous amendments will enter into force from the day of the beginning of the activities of the cassation courts of general jurisdiction and courts of appeal of general jurisdiction. The decision on this day is to be announced by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation no later than 1 October 2019.

Federal Law No. 451-FZ of 28 November 2018 “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation