Senators Klishas and Russkikh, together with MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure” offer to radically simplify access to video justice

On March 26, 2020, Andrey Klishas, ​​Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Construction, and Alexey Russkikh, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Economic Policy, sent amendments to laws to the Government and the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to radically simplify citizens’ access to video justice.

Theoretically, and today, laws allow parties to participate in the process by video link. But this can be done exclusively only from the premises of another court. In the context of a coronavirus pandemic, Russkikh believes, this approach does not stand up to criticism. “The idea of the amendments is to allow citizens to participate in the process online from where they are at the moment – in the office, sitting at home in quarantine, and so on. According to last year’s study of Deloitte auditors, 88% of people on the Internet do this from a smartphone. So let’s let people use mobile gadgets to solve their legal problems. We understand that the current pandemic is not the first, but, unfortunately, not the last,” – Russkikh notes.

In the meantime, according to him, a number of court hearings are held without the participation of the parties, and many sessions are postponed altogether.  And this is despite the fact that “in order to maintain statehood and the rule of law, the activity of courts in the administration of justice must be continuous, even under the conditions of all kinds of restrictive measures.”

The bill proposes to allow participants in civil, arbitration and administrative proceedings to participate in court hearings remotely, using personal video conferencing facilities. “In addition, this will save quite significant amounts of money that companies and government agencies spend today on travel expenses when courts are held in other cities and regions,”- the member of the Federation Council is convinced.

Nikita Filippov, head of MCBA “Bureau of Lawyers “De jure”, draws attention to another aspect of the proposed amendments: “Video courts are a very important element of a barrier-free space for people with disabilities,”- the lawyer says. -Imagine how much a wheelchair user has to overcome to get to court even in Moscow, and in the regions his problems increase at times. And this is despite the fact that we have guaranteed equal access to justice.  The proposed amendments to the Arbitration Procedure Code, Civil Procedure Code and Code of Administrative Procedure in practice realize this right for thousands of people.”

The text of the bill and the proposed changes can be found at:

Bill on Improving Access to justice in electronic form

Article 155.1 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation as amended by the bill

Article 153.1 of the Arbitration Procedure Code of the Russian Federation as amended by the bill

Article 142 of the Code of Administrative Procedure of the Russian Federation as amended by the bill