As a result of the analysis and summarising of High Commissioner’s for Human Rights in Russia proposals, the Council of Judges of the Russian Federation adopted two resolutions aimed at ensuring easier online access to information about courts’ activity.

The adopted documents will solve a range of problems related to the failure of general jurisdiction courts to systematically implement Federal Law No. 262-FZ as of 22 December 2008 On Ensuring Access to the Information about Activity of Courts of the Russian Federation.

So, Resolution of the Council of Judges of the Russian Federation No. 369 as of 3 December 2015 summarises the practice of implementation of the federal law requirements by general jurisdiction courts.

The Presidium of the Council of Judges of the Russian Federation, in its turn, issued Resolution No. 476 as of 30 December 2015 which instructs corresponding departments of the Council to finalise the explanations regarding placement of information about the cases being under consideration of courts, as well as the judicial acts on the official websites of general jurisdiction courts. In particular, within the realization of the resolution, by July 2016 a video course will be developed to train the relevant staff how to place the judicial acts’ texts to the court websites.

Earlier, the High Commissioner had repeatedly petitioned the Chairman of the Council of Judges of the Russian Federation regarding complaints from citizens against violations committed by some courts which failed to provide access to information about activity of the judiciary bodies.

In particular, the petitions said that the courts failed to properly place the judicial acts’ texts on the Internet, which significantly hindered uniform interpretation of the notions of publicity and transparency of the court proceedings.

Photo: depositphotos.com