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NEWS/Alex Maishev
Video recording of court proceedings in civil cases in Russia could become an official document — the minutes of the meeting. Such amendments to government bills providing for the introduction of mandatory video recording of trials, drafted and sent to the state Duma, the Supreme court of the Russian Federation (“News”).
According to sun, the video should have the status of minutes of meeting on civil cases. They will be able to familiarize themselves parties to the proceedings, at his own expense to order copies. The absence of the Protocol, in accordance with applicable law is one of the grounds for cancellation of the decision of the court. Initially, the government draft laws on the status of the video nothing was said. Representatives of the justice Ministry had previously stressed that they will be “supporting material”.
Somewhat more complicated is the situation with videos of the sessions, criminal, arbitration and cases in accordance with the Code of administrative procedure (CAS is on him, in particular, deals with disputes between citizens and government, such as contested election results). Sun proposes not to consider these records Protocol.
However, under the proposed amendments, the status of the video in arbitration cases and cases according to the rules of CAS, will be higher. Video recording of these sessions will be mandatory and will become “the primary means of capturing the details of the court proceedings”. So, in the Arbitration procedural code of the armed forces offers to record that a written Protocol will be subsidiary to reflect the date and time the process, name of the court case, oral statements and petitions of participants in the proceedings. And the video is the main one. Now in APC and CAS made mandatory keeping record of meetings.
Not always in the courts is technically possible video recording. So the sun proposes to allow audioproduction in civil cases. And only if it is also impossible, must be the traditional writing Protocol follows from the amendments entirely.
In criminal cases the presence of the audio recording process will be required if the court will not “technical possibilities for carrying out video caused by extraordinary and unrecoverable within a reasonable time circumstances”. A video recording of the criminal cases will not be made if the material contains state secrets. For arbitration and civil cases will not need it if things sorted out without the participation of the parties.
To all the armed services puts the same requirement: a video recording of the hearing shall be conducted continuously and to join materials. Previously this issue in the bills of the government were also not resolved.
Last fall the government proposed the state Duma to delay the introduction of new rules in force before 1 January 2020. Initially it was assumed that the video meetings will become mandatory from 1 January 2018 in the Federal courts, and from 1 January 2019 — in the world.
Lawyers welcome amendments of the armed forces, though note that the status of the Protocol could be extended to records of criminal proceedings. Advisor of the Federal chamber of lawyers of the Russian Federation Eugene Rubinstein believes that in criminal proceedings, even before the civil, you need to give video status of a primary source of information about what is happening in the trial.
— In criminal proceedings the words of any of the participants have an important role. On their basis can be solved the question of the qualification of an act and even the question of the guilt or innocence of a person, — told “Izvestia” Eugene Rubinstein.
Lawyer Kirill Belsky supported the introduction of mandatory video recording processes, but believes that to completely abandon the written Protocol is not followed. According to the lawyer, the video might serve as a means of resolving the dispute about the correctness of the form of fixation.
— In criminal cases, the mandatory video recording of meetings would be extremely important, as in practice, unfortunately, courts often eliminate the need to thoroughly comply with the requirements of the CCP. The video could serve as a good tool to fix it, he explained.
The government draft laws on video recording of court hearings was adopted in the first reading in March 2016. Amendments of the armed forces can be taken into account when preparing documents for a second reading.