Four salaries for processing – Kommersant

At the plenary meeting of the Council of Judges on Tuesday, they talked about the liberalization of criminal legislation, about which the Chairman of the Supreme Court (SC) Vyacheslav Lebedev told the president the day before, and about the norms of judicial workload. The latter have not yet been approved, but, according to the bill prepared by the Council of Judges, judges and employees of the apparatus should receive an allowance at the rate of four monthly salaries per year for processing. In total, as Kommersant found out, this, according to the calculations of the judges themselves, will require an additional 13 billion to 15 billion rubles. in year. As for the humanization of the system of criminal legislation, the appropriate amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure will be submitted to the Duma in June.

As expected, a bill on the humanization of law enforcement practice in relation to women with young children and persons who have committed crimes of small and medium gravity for the first time will be submitted to the State Duma in June. This was reported to journalists on Tuesday Vyacheslav Lebedev. The proposals were prepared on behalf of the President, which he gave after a meeting with members of the Human Rights Council (HRC).

The amendments prepared by the Supreme Court introduce a distinction between violent and non-violent crimes in the Code of Criminal Procedure – now there is no such differentiation in the law, the chairman of the Supreme Court recalled, speaking to the judges.

In criminal cases of crimes of minor gravity, it is proposed to retain the possibility of choosing a preventive measure in the form of detention only for those accused who tried to escape or who violated the previously chosen preventive measure. And in cases of non-violent crimes of medium gravity, such a measure can also be applied to defendants whose identity has not been established or who do not have a permanent place of residence or stay in Russia. At the same time, the absence of a place of residence or registration should not serve as a basis for extending the arrest. For women with young children, arrest for a crime of medium gravity will be possible only if the crime is violent. “We expect the bill to be ready in June. There is coordination with various bodies,” Mr. Lebedev said. According to him, in the first quarter of this year, the courts have already granted 4% fewer requests for arrest and 11% less for extension of arrest compared to the same period last year. But the number of persons in respect of whom the courts have chosen a measure of restraint in the form of house arrest has increased by 20%.

Chairman of the HRC Valery Fadeev warmly supported the initiative of the Supreme Court and added that it would be nice to do something more with the deadlines for detention, which can now stretch almost indefinitely. This, of course, is about crimes that are not serious and not particularly serious, just in case, he clarified, and in general this is not an easy question. “This, of course, is a trend towards humanization, but it doesn’t hurt,” Mr. Fadeev feared. “Together we could find a reasonable solution.”

However, as Viktor Momotov, chairman of the Council of Judges, admitted, one of the main goals of reforming the judiciary is still to reduce the burden on judges and employees of the judiciary.

For these purposes, the commission of the Council of Judges on the improvement of legislation has prepared a draft federal law “On the norms of official workload of judges.” It is of a general nature, but fixes the very concept of such a norm. The scientifically justified workload will be calculated by the Judicial Department under the Supreme Court (previously, a special scientific study commissioned by the Higher School of Economics was carried out), and approved by the Council of Judges, but not more often than once every four years. The approved standards should be taken into account when determining the staffing of judges and court staff for the next financial year.

As follows from the bill, which Kommersant managed to get acquainted with, judges and staff working with excess workload will be entitled to a bonus “for the complexity and intensity of work” at the rate of four official salaries per year. The direct calculation of the workload must be carried out using an information system to be determined by the Judicial Department and the Supreme Court. The draft law also allows for the redistribution of vacancies between courts in case of uneven workload. Although the norms are not specified in the draft law, its authors calculated that with the current staffing of judges (37,709) and court staff (80,940 people), the payment of allowances for complexity and tension will require from 13.4 billion rubles. in 2023 to 15.3 billion rubles. in 2026.

Anastasia Kornya