The first results of the judicial reform. Review of the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference “Cassation Courts of General Jurisdiction: first results, practice, prospects”

The article presents an analysis of the results of the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference “Cassation Courts of General Jurisdiction: first results, practice, prospects”, which summarizes preliminary results of the judicial reform initiated in 2018 by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. In accordance with the Federal Constitutional Law, serious changes were made to the Federal Constitutional Law “On the Judicial System of the Russian Federation” and certain federal constitutional laws, cassation courts of general jurisdiction and courts of appeal of general jurisdiction were created. On the basis of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, on October 1, 2019, the cassation courts of general jurisdiction began their work.

Five years from the beginning of the activity of the cassation courts is a short period. However, it contained a difficult period of formation with a thousand complaints a week, the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the Moscow cassation did not stop working for a single day, the entry into the Russian Federation of four new subjects – the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions. Unique experience has been accumulated, the most important decisions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation have come into force, judicial practice has changed and improved, certain gaps and defects in legal regulation have become apparent.

In this regard, it became necessary to evaluate the results of the reform, exchange views on topical issues of substantive and procedural law, jointly – the judicial community and leading legal scholars – identify the most acute problems of law enforcement and propose ways to solve them.