The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation will consider a case, the outcome of which may affect the payment for translator services

The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (SC) will consider a case, the outcome of which may affect the payment for translator services. In criminal, civil, administrative and arbitration cases, a fixed fee per sheet and number of characters is established for translation. But the Bashkir Ministry of Internal Affairs decided that it should not pay for numbers and repeated paragraphs. The arbitration courts supported the translator, but the Supreme Court agreed to consider the claims of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. According to lawyers, the outcome of the case may affect the payment for the services of not only translators, but also other specialists involved.

The Supreme Court will figure out how to pay for the services of translators helping in the trial. The decision will be made within the framework of Leila Bagirova’s dispute with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Bashkortostan. In November 2021, she signed a contract to translate the indictment in a criminal case from Russian into Uzbek.

According to the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, “participants in criminal proceedings who do not speak or have insufficient knowledge of the language” in which it is conducted are given the right to free assistance from an interpreter. His services are paid from the budget; the tariffs are contained in the Regulations on the Reimbursement of Procedural Costs, approved by the resolution. For written translation of one sheet (1800 printed characters) no more than 200 rubles are required, and for rare languages ​​(Hungarian, Finnish, Swedish, Japanese, Chinese, etc.) – no more than 400 rubles.

According to the contract, the cost of services is set at 400 rubles. per sheet. The translation was completed, and the acceptance certificate for services was signed, after which the translator issued an invoice for 14 million rubles, of which the Ministry of Internal Affairs paid 2.5 million rubles. In response to the demand to transfer the remaining 11.5 million rubles. The ministry refused, and Leila Bagirova filed a claim for recovery. The arbitration courts of three instances sided with the translator, noting that the calculation of payment for her services was approved by the contract and did not change, and the translation was accepted “without objections or comments.”

The Ministry of Internal Affairs appealed to the Supreme Court, alleging a violation of the rules for paying for translator services, approved by the government of the Russian Federation, and the use of incorrect methods by the courts. According to the ministry, it should not pay for Arabic numerals and repeated paragraphs, and after deducting them, the amount is exactly 2.5 million rubles. In addition, signing the acceptance certificate “does not deprive the customer of the right to submit objections regarding the volume and cost of the work (services) performed,” and the act indicates only the total number of characters with spaces, but not the number of characters to be paid for. The case was transferred to the Economic Collegium of the Supreme Court, the hearing is scheduled for February 7.

Managing partner of the Criminal Defense Firm, Alexey Novikov, believes that the problem raised “is of practical interest.” According to his observations, “non-contractual reductions in the amount of payment for translation of documents are found everywhere, and translators do not always go to court to protect their rights.” There are no official statistics on the number of translators participating in criminal proceedings, notes Mr. Novikov. At the same time, according to the Court Department of the Supreme Court, the number of foreign citizens convicted in Russia has been growing in recent years: in 2022 there were 20,791 people (of which 19,909 were from CIS countries), while in 2021 – 18,257 (17,553 from the CIS), and in 2020 – 15,243 (14,551 from the CIS).

Lawyer of the MCA “Lawyers and Business” Dmitry Shadrin says that “from time to time, the Ministry of Internal Affairs tries to reduce the cost of translation in court with reference to repeated paragraphs,” but usually without success. On the one hand, notes Nikolai Titov, co-founder of the law firm atLegal, “the relations between the parties to the contract are within the framework of civil law,” on the other hand, “payment for services is made by the government at the expense of budgetary funds, which means that when determining their cost, imperative requirements of the law must be observed to ensure balance private and public interests.” In practice, he said, “if the amounts paid for services are small, then disagreements usually do not arise, but when we are talking about significant budget expenses, the likelihood of a challenge increases significantly.”

Dmitry Shadrin considers the position of the Ministry of Internal Affairs to be unfounded, since “all the conditions were agreed upon in the contract, and a unilateral refusal of contractual obligations is unacceptable, especially if the acceptance certificate was signed without comments.” Nikolai Titov believes that the Supreme Court was interested in the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ argument about the right not to pay for the translation of repeated paragraphs. “The legislation says nothing about this. But we must take into account that often the indictment contains many repetitions of the text, especially when a defendant in a criminal case is charged with several episodes of a crime,” explains Mr. Novikov. “In some cases, repetition can account for 80–90% of the conclusion,” admits Mr. Shadrin.

In this regard, Mr. Titov believes that the likelihood of court decisions being overturned is high. “If the Supreme Court supports the ministry, this could change the practice and create legal uncertainty regarding the procedure for calculating the cost of work not only of translators, but also of any involved specialists (the costs of which are described in the mentioned government regulation.— “Kommersant”),” Dmitry Shadrin fears. As a result, he believes, “the risk of abuse by officials may increase and the attractiveness of such work is unlikely to increase.” Moreover, we can talk not only about criminal cases. “The provision also applies to civil, arbitration, administrative and constitutional disputes,” explains Mr. Shadrin. “A change in interpretation may lead to a revision of payment for services for all types of legal proceedings.”

Anna Zanina