Supreme Court Rules Courts Have Right to Deprive People of Right to Speak during Administrative Hearings

Echo of Moscow

June 13, 2017

A plenary session of the Russian Supreme Court ruled today that courts have the right to deprive people of the right to speak during administrative [misdemeanor] hearings. As Interfax reported, the move was requested by the Prosecutor General’s Office, which had argued it would speed up administrative proceedings and prevent the misuse of procedural rights. This argument was made in a statement by the Prosecutor General’s Office issued after the plenary session, at which Deputy Prosecutor General Leonid Korzhinyok was present. In an interview with Echo, Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer and head of the Team 29 association of lawyers and journalists, said the Prosecutor General’s Office’s motives were clear. According to Pavlov, the office, headed by Yuri Chaika, realizes the judicial system simply cannot cope with the number of detainees under the standard procedure, as stipulated by law. Pavlov added that, unlike laws, rulings by plenary sessions of the Supreme Court take effect immediately, so today’s ruling can be applied from now on. The Supreme Court’s plenary ruling “On the Use of Procedural Coercive Measures during Administrative Hearings” renders the court system meaningless. Such was the opinion voiced to Echo by Elena Lukyanova, professor of constitutional and municipal law at the Higher School of Economics. She added that a broad public discussion of the issue would be needed to force an overturning of the ruling.

Translated by the Russian Reader. Thanks to Alexei Kouprianov for the heads-up