Russian Court Cases Held Behind Closed Doors Double over Last Five Years, Setting a New Record

 Paul Goble

            Staunton, Apr. 28 – Despite the Russian constitution’s guarantee of trials open to the public and the media, Vladimir Putin’s regime has increasingly clos court hearings to the public, with the number of such cases jumping from 13,172 in 2018 to 25,587 last year, a new all-time record.

            That means that roughly one in every thirty cases the Russian judicial system examines is now examined and judged behind closed doors, but the trend suggests that that share will rise and the amount of arbitrary star-chamber justice will only increase by making it easier for prosecutors and judges to do what they are told to do (zona.media/news/2023/04/27/justice).

            Prior to 2018, the number of such closed cases had grown relatively slowly, an indication that there was a clear policy directive in that year to change the legal system and make it even less responsive to the principles of justice than it was before.