Most Serious Problem of Russian Courts is that They are Arranged So that the Number of Not Guilty Verdicts is Approaching Zero, Agranovsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Nov. 6 – Igor Krasnov, chief judge of the Russian Supreme Court, says that he believes the main problem of Russian courts is that the logic behind verdicts in one place often is at serious variance with that in others, something that increases the number of appeals and decreases the authorities of the courts (tass.ru/obschestvo/25510289).

            But Dmitry Agranovsky, a lawyer and rights activist, says that the judge should be focusing on an entirely different problem, “the virtual absence of adversarial proceedings between the prosecution and the defense” and the resulting disappearance of “not guilty” findings (svpressa.ru/society/article/489219/).

            (For statistical evidence on this point which shows that the number of acquittal in Russian courts has fallen to only 0.15 percent – that is one “not guilty” finding for every 670 cases, see the discussion at windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2023/05/acquittals-in-russian-courts-fall-to.html.)

            This trend reflects a weakening of the position of defense lawyers, Agranovsky says; and “without an adversarial process, courts become a mere conveyor belt for manufacturing verdicts, where officials view acquittals as a flaw and strive to minimize them. That is the most important problem” of Russian courts, he continues. “All others are merely cosmetic.”

            He argues that a capitalist system needs adversarial relations in its courts to provide “at least some kind of regulator because without cross-cutting systems of control, capitalism simply destroys it completely, and the system as a whole quickly decays.” Governments of other capitalist countries understand that; the Russian government does not appear to.

            As a result, the prospects for Russian courts and the Russian economic and political system are anything but bright.