Attorneys of “Padva & Partners” doubt the efficiency of uniting the Supreme and Higher Arbitrazh Courts and transferring the newly created court instance to St. Petersburg.
The bill on uniting the Supreme and Higher Arbitrazh Courts was introduced by the President of Russia to the lower chamber of the Russian parliament this 7 October. Some experts believe that this document may be enacted before year end. The reform of the higher courts envisions amendments to the Constitution of Russia, which will eliminate the Higher Arbitrazh Court with its functions transferred to the Supreme Court.
“Frankly, this merging of the courts causes some confusion. It is completely unclear why these Courts need to be merged and transferred to St. Petersburg», - believes the Managing Partner Genrikh Padva.
“This entails huge expenses, a huge perturbation, in the Courts structures. A lot of people and workplaces will be lost. Altogether, this is rather strange and baffling, I cannot really explain why this is being done”, - he said.
Genrikh Padva added, that ”St. Petersburg, as far as I know, is not really looking forward to this. I read, for instance, a speech of the honourable citizen of St. Petersburg Oleg Basilashvili, and he says, “Why is this being done? Petersburg is overflowing as it is”.
“Really, this is hard to understand. Why the two highest courts are being moved rather far away from the capital to St. Petersburg. Well established connections are being broken, - Genrikh Padva emphasised.
Deputy Managing Partner Eleonora Sergeeva agrees, “the first question one asks is – why?”
Eleonora Sergeeva reminded how Vladimir Putin said that “parallelism in work must be avoided” and gave as an example cases when parties litigate in general courts and then the losing party applies to the arbitrazh system with the same matter and obtains a judgement opposite to the general court’s ruling, and vice versa“.
“It appears that the requirement on court jurisdiction established by the Arbitrazh and Civil procedural codes does not allow to “jump” so easily from one courts to the other, unless new parties are artificially brought into the dispute, said Eleonora Sergeeva.
“Nevertheless, the problem of one and the same rule being given different interpretation by general and arbitrazh courts, does exist. But no one prevents the Higher Arbitrazh Court and the Supreme Court from continuing to hold joint sessions of the Plenum of the Higher Arbitrazh Court and the Plenum of the Supreme Court and issue joint rulings “, - Mrs. Sergeeva explained.
She noted that in the “rules enacted as far back as 1999, expressly state that the joint Plenum sessions shall be held, inter alia, for ensuring uniform application of the rules of substantive and procedural law applied by general and arbitrazh courts, establishing uniform court practice”.
“Another question arises then - - qui prodest? (who profits - Lat.) and now this has no relation to efficiency …», - Mrs. Sergeeva concluded.
