Maxim Ali has commented on the guidelines of the Supreme Court on the automatization of court proceedings

Novaya Advokatskaya newspaper has published an article on the Supreme Court’s guidelines regarding the use of electronic documents in court proceedings.

Maxim Ali, Senior Associate at Maxima Legal and Specialist in IP/IT matters, analysed the Court’s guidelines and notes that the publication may been useful to lawyers who are involved in dispute resolution since its contents provides explanations that are not necessarily provided for directly by the law.

Regarding the judicial guidance, Maxim Ali noted the instruction of the Supreme Court for decisions related to “unpredictable” procedural matters should be shared with the parties to proceedings not only through the Internet, but also through printed notices.

“The instructions are extremely important since it provides for the informing the parties to a case about events in the court process that take place outside the usual conduct for proceedings”, emphasised Maxim Ali.

Maxim Ali noted that the developing practice for preparing matters for court directions by the parties themselves, the Supreme Court allows the parties to a case to provide documentation in electronic format with the potential for their copying. “Such an initiative can only be welcomed, since it not only simplifies and speeds up the preparing of court directions but also allows the court to use software to check all kinds of calculations submitted by the parties”, commented Maxim.

Maxim also noted that the document separately considers the issue of reviewing evidence which are printouts of Internet pages. “The idea of conducting such reviews of evidence is not new, but to date the courts have been extremely reluctant to support its use in real cases (which is likely to change in the future). Therefore, the parties, as a rule, prefer to apply for a web site review by a notary, especially since in recent years the law permits it even after proceedings in civil or arbitration cases have begun.”

In respect of this, Maxim recalled another guideline from the Supreme Court that it is possible to exclude a notarised copy of a site as evidence only if the other party had not been notified about such actions. “Such a reason is seldom used by the Courts (including in the Intellectual Property Court) to rule evidence as being inadmissible”, added Maxim.

To read the full article, please see the following link: http://www.advgazeta.ru/novosti/verkhovnyy-sud-gotovit-razyasneniya-po-avtomatizatsii-sudoproizvodstva/