Roman Ryabzin was appointed to the position of judge of the Supreme Court

On February 7, the Federation Council appointed Roman Ryabzin to the post of judge of the Supreme Court (SC), who previously headed the secretariat of the Chairman of the Supreme Court Vyacheslav Lebedev. This is not the most standard case, because Mr. Ryabzin has no practical judicial experience. However, the head of the relevant committee of the Federation Council, Andrei Klishas, ​​discovered that this has “its advantages”: such people can bring a lot of new and useful things to the work of the judicial system. The expert agrees: such cases have already happened, and even when appointed at the highest level; It is more important that there is real competition when selecting for judicial positions.

Appointed on February 7 as a judge of the Supreme Court, Roman Ryabzin has worked in the court apparatus since 2006, where he previously headed the personnel and civil service department, and over the past five years he headed the secretariat of the chairman of the Supreme Court Vyacheslav Lebedev. He graduated from the Russian Academy of Justice and defended his Ph.D. thesis on the topic “Legal features of the activities of courts of general jurisdiction.” In November, Mr. Ryabzin received a recommendation from the Higher Qualification Board of Judges (HQJC) for appointment, becoming the only candidate for the position of judge of the civil panel of the Supreme Court.

Introducing the future judge to his colleagues at a meeting of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, its head Andrei Klishas noted the applicant’s not-so-standard career track and solid work experience in the judicial system. This is not the first case when a person without practical experience becomes a judge of a high court, Mr. Klishas noted. In his opinion, this has its advantages. “It seems to me that when people come to the highest court who deeply understand the work of the judicial system, the problems of the industry, but they do not have their own background, they can bring a lot of new and useful things to the work of the highest court,” the senator said. “The candidate is highly qualified in the field of law, he has more than 19 years of experience in the legal profession, he is a candidate of legal sciences, and at the committee meeting he adequately answered all the questions,” added Andrei Klishas.

In fact, at the committee meeting held the day before, only one question was asked to the candidate for judge: Senator from the Altai Territory Natalya Kuvshinova complained about the increasing frequency of accidents in the housing and communal services sector. She asked how the rights of citizens in this area are currently protected. The protection of housing rights of citizens is a socially significant category of cases, and the Supreme Court pays close attention to them; they immediately found a candidate and remembered that just in December last year a review of judicial practice in cases of consumer rights protection was published.

At the plenary session on February 7, the future judge was also not asked many questions. The senators were mainly interested in how access to justice is ensured in new regions and what measures are being taken to optimize the workload on judges. Roman Ryabzin assured those gathered that everything was fine with access to justice: a huge amount of work had been done to select the initial composition of the courts, and on September 21 they began work and, according to the end of the year, had already considered over 49 thousand cases, and “with good results.” quality and mostly within a reasonable time frame for legal proceedings.” As for the workload on judges, it is still high: in 2023, there were an average of more than 500 cases per month per magistrate judge, and about 60 cases per district judge. Optimization occurs mainly due to the expansion of summary proceedings, but the issue still remains acute, the future judge admitted. As a result, the senators voted unanimously for the appointment of Roman Ryabzin to this position.

According to statistics, court employees most often become judges. Higher courts fall somewhat out of this trend, but the general rule applies here too. Thus, Mr. Ryabzin’s predecessor as head of the secretariat of the chairman of the Supreme Court, Alexey Kharlamov, also became a judge of the Supreme Court in 2010, and in 2019 – chairman of the court of the Moscow region. Another employee of the secretariat, Advisor to the Chairman of the Supreme Court Stanislav Fedorov, in November last year received a recommendation from the Higher Qualification Committee for the post of head of the Arbitration Court of the Moscow Region (there is no presidential decree on his appointment yet). Finally, last year, Vladimir Sivitsky, head of the secretariat of this court, was appointed judge of the Constitutional Court.

Managing partner of the Bartolius law office, Yuliy Tai, says that he does not see a problem in the future judge’s lack of practical experience: after all, he reminds, at one time Anton Ivanov became the chairman of the Supreme Arbitration Court (SAC), and before that he had never been a judge did not work, and many of its best judges came from the apparatus of the Supreme Court. There are also frequent cases when scientists become judges of higher courts, the expert recalls. Ideally, he argues, the judicial system should have more or less equal representation of both its own personnel – people from the court apparatus, and former employees of government agencies, as well as practicing lawyers and representatives of science; it is in this case that the system will find balance and the possibility of mutual enrichment. But the main thing, Yuliy Tai insists, is the presence of real competition in the selection for judicial positions. In our country, the higher the authority and position, the fewer applicants for it, so this time the competition turned out to be uncontested, the expert recalls.

Anastasia Kornya