JUDICIAL REFORM OF THE LATE 20TH – EARLY 21ST CENTURIES IN RUSSIA

The author analyzes the reform of the Russian legislation regulating the activity of courts for consideration of civil cases, the reform, which began in the 1990s and continues to this day. Highlights the main stages of the reform related to the adoption of the Constitution of the Russian Federation 1993, changes in the judicial system, with the adoption of the Commercial Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in 1992, 1995, 2002, with a major change of Civil Procedure Code of the RSFSR 1964 and the entry into force of the current Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, 2002. In addition, the author calls the current trends in the development of procedural legislation, including reforms made by Federal Law of 28 November 2018 No. 451-FZ.

Legal conflict between the EU and the republic of Poland regarding polish judicial reform

Problem setting. On October 7, 2021, the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland ruled in favor of Polish law over European Union law, which in the long run may violate the principles according to which the Union operates and the rights enjoyed by citizens of the state. Such a precedent can further serve as a basis for identical decisions of the bodies of constitutional jurisdiction of those states that have problems in fulfilling their obligations in the European community. Analysis of recent researches and publications. The problems of the functioning of the bodies of the European Union, the implementation of their decisions and the general status in EU law are widely studied in national science. In particular, many scholars have studied the legal nature of the EU, including: TM Anakina, VI Muravyov, NM Ushakov, A. Ya. Kapustina, NA Korolyova, Yu. Yumashev, BN Topornin, OYa Tragniuk, SS Seliverstov, IV Yakovyuk and others. Target of research is to establish the foundations of EU law in the functioning of Union bodies, especially the Court, as well as to determine the hierarchy of national law and EU law. Article’s main body. Over the years, the Court has, within its jurisdiction, issued a large number of judgments which have become the source of the Union’s Constituent Treaties and of EU law in general. Over the last two decades, the powers of the Court of Justice have changed significantly. In particular, this is due to the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, which amended the EU’s founding treaties on the powers of the Court, then the reform of the European Court took place in 2015-2016, which concerned a change in the organizational structure of the Court. Despite the generally well-established case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union on the unification of the observance by the Member States of the basic principles of the European Union, the Constitutional Tribunal of the Republic of Poland adopted a decision on 7 October. Conclusions and prospects for the development. Following the decision of the Constitutional Court, the Polish authorities found themselves in a situation that significantly complicated its internal and external situation. The way out of which requires answers to fundamental questions about the legal nature of the EU. Undoubtedly, this is an issue not only between Poland and the EU, but also between other member states.

APPEAL PROCEEDINGS: HISTORY, THEORY, PRACTICE

History, theory, and court practice are the basis of judicial reform. If the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation was created considering this with, but subsequent changes of the procedural law show the opposite. Changes of procedure in the appellate court are not an exception, and that is why for the last 10 years theoretical and practical problems of appeal proceedings have existed. The article aims to draw attention to the reasons of occurrence of these problems; mistakes made in the course of its solution; ways of error correction with due regard for experience of Russian civil procedure, achievements of the civil procedure doctrine, needs of Russian judicial practice; necessity of complex approach in reforming proceedings in the court of appeal instance.

Simplified claim proceedings: legislative regulations of the Code of Civil Procedure of Ukraine

In the process of building the rule of law, one of its most important criteria is the creation of a fair, transparent and efficient judiciary. The essential need for radical changes in the judiciary and the reform of its individual institutions is a matter of time. The main goal of judicial reform in Ukraine should be to create legislative and organizational conditions for the establishment of an independent, efficient and accountable judiciary in Ukraine, which will be trusted by society. Judicial and legal reform in Ukraine is comprehensive and involves amendments to the Constitution of Ukraine, legislation on the judiciary and the status of judges, reform of related institutions (prosecutor's office, bar, law enforcement agencies), as well as improving procedural legislation and legislation governing enforcement. court decisions. In particular, the article emphasizes that legislative changes have been made to the Commercial Procedural Code of Ukraine, initiated new forms of commercial litigation, one of the forms of commercial litigation is simplified litigation, which is designed to consider minor cases, cases of minor complexity and other cases for which priority is given. quick resolution of the case. Along with the simplified procedure and procedures for litigation, the introduction of this form of litigation has revealed certain shortcomings of such regulations. Keywords: commercial litigation, insignificant cases, legislation, shortcomings, procedure

Standing up for Democracy? Explaining Citizens’ Support for Democratic Checks and Balances

Winners and losers of elections have different stakes in protecting democratic institutions. We provide new evidence for the effects of partisanship and economic performance on support for checks and balances and acceptance of their infringement. Using survey data from 26 European countries, we show that voters who feel close to a political party that lost the elections support checks and balances significantly more than other citizens. We also find that higher satisfaction with the economy is associated with lower support for checks and balances. Our experiment in Ukraine shows that supporters and opponents of the governing party have divergent evaluations of a reform potentially infringing on the independence of the judiciary. Those in opposition find such reforms less acceptable and justified. Again, we find that improved economic performance leads to higher acceptance of judicial reform. Our results confirm that citizens’ support for checks and balances is contingent and volatile.

Criminological Policy of the Russian Federation: the Concept of Judicial Reform and Justice of the Peace

The article presents a legal approach to the problem of the influence of the judicial system segment of Russian criminological policy on the effectiveness of the general prevention of deviant behavior. Within this framework, the authors compare the assumptions of the program documents that described the criminological parameters of justice of the peace during its introduction in the contemporary judicial system, and the results achieved by this introduction. By analyzing the Decree of the Supreme Council of the RSFSR «On the Concept of Judicial Reform in the RSFSR», the authors demonstrate that this document was aimed at legitimizing confederative relationships in the Russian Federation with the design of the judicial system of «cooperative federalism» type. The justice of the peace, whose status and jurisdiction are only schematically outlined in the Concept of Judicial Reform, was to play a decorative role in the political and ideological support of the achievement of a far more ambitious goal. The transformation of Russia into a state of «cooperative federalism» with extreme asymmetry of its subjects would have meant the removal of the opportunity for the justices of the peace to perform the criminological function of courts. The introduction of justices of the peace simultaneously with the adoption of their own codes of material and procedural law in the republics of the RSFSR predetermined the creation of legal systems independent of the federal center in each Russian subject and the blocking of the criminological function of the courts. At the same time, a retrospect reference to the legal tradition of the Russian Empire formed an erroneous understanding of Russian justice of the peace as a unified (since 1864) judicial system, and lead to the development of abstract projects that hindered the implementation of the crime prevention potential of justice of the peace. The result of the criminological policy of the Russian Federation in 1991–1996 was the structuring of the court system of the Russian Federation which was different from the model presented in the Concept of Judicial Reform. The conducted research showed that justice of the peace in Russia duly influences crime prevention.

Russian Legal Mentality: Procedural Law vs. Customary People’s Justice

Russian customary law is a unique source for the study of the Russian traditional legal mentality. It is a kind of a cast from the people’s “instinctive right-feeling” (I. A. Ilyin), a product, a repository and at the same time a generator of legal mental attitudes. The results of research in the field of cognitive linguistics confirm the connection between thought processes and language. The author proceeds from the fact that the national language is an appropriate basis; and the means of linguistics are an effective tool for studying the national legal culture, legal mentality, legal consciousness. The paper describes separate approaches to the interpretation of the concepts of “mentality” and “mindset”, proposes a definition of the concept of “Russian legal mentality” and identifies the category of those possessing it.The procedures for considering and resolving cases according to the norms of secret, written, pre-reform (before 1864) and post-reform (after the Judicial Reform of 1864) process, fixed by positive law (legislation), not only in form, but also in the approach itself, differed significantly from the traditions of popular justice as a “branch” of Russian customary law.The main attitudes of the Russian traditional legal mentality are described in procedural aspects that are significant for the perception of law and legislation. Russian traditional legal mentality is reconstructed in order to identify the key mental attitudes inherent in the tradition of Russian customary law, in contrast with the approaches natural for the Western legal tradition. This is done in the context of the following phenomena: the ideal of justice, procedural order, legal qualification, the value of evidence, the purpose and result of justice.

Сoncepts and elements of judicial enforcement

The problems of judicial enforcement are considered in the article. It is emphasized that judicial enforcement is a legal form of state functions implementation. The need to study this legal category is emphasized. This need is related to the harmonization of legislation with international standards, judicial reform, and increased protection of human rights. Different points of view of legal scholars concerning judicial enforcement are investigated. It is concluded that the judicial application of the law is based on the rules of positive law. A judge may not refuse to hear a case due to gaps in the law. Judicial enforcement is associated not only with the application of the law, but also with their interpretation, and sometimes lawmaking. On the one hand, the judiciary is a manifestation of power, and on the other it is the most rational and effective form of control over the activities of state power. It is stated in the article that justice, as a court activity carried out in the form of civil, administrative, criminal, economic and constitutional proceedings, takes place in the procedural forms established by law. Law enforcement activity of the court is a long, complex and systematic process. It has a specific purpose, that is a clearly defined value, which includes recognition of a person, their life, health, honor and dignity, inviolability and security. It is stated that law enforcement cannot be carried out beyond the principles of law, as they go through all the rules of law and are the basis of the legal system. The components of the rule of law are recognized by the international community. In particular, they are: – the right to appeal against the actions of public authorities; – free assessment by the court of the circumstances of the case; – independence and impartiality of judges; – independent judicial procedure, which covers fairness, openness, reasonable time for consideration of the case, availability of legal aid; – binding nature of court decisions. In order to ensure the proper judicial system functioning, it is proposed to amend the current legislation in the process of judicial reform. The conclusions to the article stipulate that the court performs both law enforcement and law-making functions. The essence of the administration of justice and judicial activity is reduced to the application of law. In the process of administering justice, the judiciary acts in clearly defined procedural forms. Judicial power, as a subject of constitutional regulation, is exercised precisely in justice, and justice is administered and administered by the court through judicial enforcement. Key words: judicial enforcement, justice, judicial activity, judicial power, judicial proceedings, judicial lawmaking.

Hidden Continuities?: The Avatars of “Judicial Lustration” in Post-Communist Romania

This Article grapples with the instrumentalization of the past in Romania, in the specific context of “judicial lustration” measures. It argues that decommunization and lustration policies, which could not be pursued in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of state socialism in 1989, were weaponized much later and used in order to advance other purposes. In 2006, an expedited judicial vetting procedure, in the context of the EU-driven fight against corruption, was repurposed by the center-right as a lustration instrument. In the same year, the dismantling of an intelligence service created after 1991 in the Justice Ministry (SIPA) to monitor ‘vulnerabilities’ in the justice system has set in motion a long series of failed attempts to bring closure to the question regarding the service’s archives, fomenting continuities of suspicion until today. More recently, in 2018, a form of ‘mock-judicial lustration’ has been used by the political left to deflect or at least delegitimize repressive anti-corruption policies. The new “lustration procedure” implicitly equated the recent cooperation between prosecutors and intelligence officers, in the context of the fight against corruption, with past practices of collusion between the members of the judiciary and the communist Securitate. These three episodes of ‘dealing with the past’ are reviewed in order to showcase path-dependencies. Such path-dependencies are not linked only with carryovers from or throwbacks to the communist past. Rather, pre- and post-communist deficiencies of modernization, combined more recently with gaps in post-accession monitoring by the EU Commission, create continuities of peripheral instrumentalism. Various narratives, such as decommunization, the fight against graft, judicial reform and the rule of law are used to legitimize short-term consequentialism, evincing a resilient, structural resistance to legislative and legal normativity.