Prof. Vyacheslav Lebedev, President of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation

Prof. Vyacheslav Lebedev is an Honoured Jurist of the Russian Federation.
He was born in 1943; graduated in Law from the Moscow State University. He began his career as a district judge; occupied different posts in Moscow courts of law. Since 1986 he has been chairman of the Moscow City Court. Since 1989 he has been chairman of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. He has an outstanding contribution to the implementation of judicial reforms and the forming of the legislative basis in the area of judiciary. He is the author of tens of studies on the problems of the legal system of the Russian Federation. Prof. Vyacheslav Lebedev was in Bulgaria for the ceremony of conferring upon him the title Doctor Honris Causa of the St. Clement Ohrid Sofia University. On the sidelines of his visit he gave an interview to the Bulgarian National Televison.

Prof. Lebedev, let’s start with the concrete reason for your visit to Bulgaria – the conferring of the title Doctor Honoris Causa by St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia. How do you feel about this distinction?
This is a wonderful occasion for me. I love your country. I am sincere, because it was the first one I visited in my life. This happened in 1980. Then in the course of a few years I had the chance to stay in Bulgaria several times and establish very good contacts with the Law Faculty of this remarkable university, Sofia University. Together with the Bulgarian-Russian Juridical Club we do very useful work. We discuss very topical legal subjects. This interaction takes the form of many concrete disputes, conferences and seminars. I had the fortune to deliver lectures at the Law Faculty several times. Bulgarian colleagues visited Russia: the President of the Court of Cassation as well as colleagues from the Supreme Administrative Court of Bulgaria. These are very interesting and intensive meetings. They always have a tangible outcome. I always discuss the matters we have talked about with my colleagues in Russia. We rationalize everything that happens in the world legal science and in Bulgaria, in order to make the judicial system in Russia and our jurisdiction of better quality and more efficient, so that citizens can find a quick solution to their litigation from a just and impartial court. This is our main goal.

I think the fact that the academic council of this prestigious university bestowed on me the honorary title of Doctor Honoris Causa is extremely important and very prestigious not only for myself but for the Supreme Court of Russia.

Would you summarize the relations between the Bulgarian and the Russian jurists?
I can give a very high and positive assessment because I am convinced the Bulgarian and the Russian jurists have a sincere goal – to do so that the citizens would be defended in court, that the court would be unprejudiced and independent from the other powers, to have real guarantees for independence of the judges. The topic of the judges’ independence in all times, today and tomorrow will always be very topical. Politicians, jurists, scientists, practitioners and theoreticians ponder on it. All who discuss it speak beautifully, but our task is this not to be just beautiful declarations on the pages of the press or from the TV screen, but to become a reality. There is another aspect to it. We invariably take very hard the cases when someone encroaches on the guarantees of the judges’ independence. I think this is the reaction not only in Russia but worldwide, including the Bulgarian judges. However, the judges should remember that their independence is not a privilege but a high responsibility to society. Therefore we should treat carefully this, I would say, social value that is the judges’ independence as well as the other powers – the legislature and the executive, civil society. So, we, jurists, the Bulgarian and the Russian judges have plenty to talk about and discuss.

Here, in fact, there are many other topics and issues related to the requisite condition of efficient administration of the law. Fair jurisdiction – this is extremely important. We succeeded in laying down in the Constitution of Russia all these values, which affect jurisdiction. I found out that recently there was a presentation of the Constitution of Russia in your country. This is very good, the fact that our Constitution is not declarative but practically operative and in it the principles of fair jurisdiction not only found a place but were practically embodied in the federal laws, in the criminal and the civil codes, in the civil lawsuits procedures.

A serious topic to be considered is also the backup of the court activity, their equipment and financing. These issues, from our point of view, have already been solved quite successfully in Russia, although the proposals we made in this connection during discussions a couple of years ago evoked astonishment and we had many opponents both in the government and in the individual ministries and departments. We managed to convince the government and the legislators that the judiciary, in as far as it is a priori independent, must have its own financing and resources to provide for the courts activity. That it should not depend on the will of officials, heads of one department or another. Therefore we entered a bill, proposing the financing of jurisdiction to be placed in the hands of the judiciary in the person of the Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of Russia.

Today, nine years later, we can say this is a reality. The financing of the court system as a whole increased more than 13-fold. Our services at the judicial department construct beautiful modern buildings. This is happening at all levels, including regional and district courts. They are very well equipped with up-to-date technologies, with computer systems with good software. This year the putting into operation of the national automated program “Justice” was completed. This enabled us to encompass in the information system the entire network of courts under a common jurisdiction. But in the first place it is useful to the public, because with the help of it people can get exhaustive information about the activity of the courts.

Last year we completed the construction of the unique Supreme Court building of floorage of 50,000 sq. m. It is very beautiful, but most importantly its state-of-the-art equipment provides excellent working conditions to the judges and the entire court staff. All rooms are equipped with modern means of communication with the different subjects of the federation, located tens of thousands of kilometres away from each other, for example Moscow and Habarovsk in the Far East. We hear the cases at the second instance by means of telecommunications, television, video conferences. This considerably shortens the time and is of doubtless economic benefit, while the rights of the parties in the proceedings are not infringed. This efficient form is used very actively. Through a video conference connection we can present the legal standpoint of the Supreme Court to those courts, which are situated at a great distance.

... Here I enumerated just a few aspects in which we collaborate and exchange views and experience. The topic of our contacts is very serious and interesting. The issues of law education are important to Russia, I think for Bulgaria too. In this respect we have very good cooperation and I suppose it will be further enhanced and will be beneficial to the court systems in our two countries.

Organized crime and corruption are a very serious challenge to the Bulgarian court. How do you proceed in Russia?
These phenomena are present in Russia too. Our task is to try these cases timely and at a high level. There should be speed and efficiency, without infringing the rights of the parties to the proceedings.

The matters related to this kind of trials are very complicated and socially significant. Of course, they require specialization and the Supreme Court gives great attention to generalizations and analysis in judiciary practice. In order to become clear what are the most intricate problems facing the courts in relation to these trials and the courts would be given timely recommendations what to do, how they should interpret the law and how they should consider the matters in substance, ensuing from the interpretation of the operative legislation. This is conducive to quick trials. Their topicality and the efficiency of the court settlement would suffer in the event a prolonged trial and, God forbid, continuance. This invariably has negative consequences – some evidence may be lost or questioned. This is exactly the task of the Supreme Court, to analyze this activity continuously in order to be able to set the right course for hearing these trials.

Do you have legal proceedings for corruption started against representatives of the supreme power?
Not many. There is a special procedure, provided for indictment of representatives of the authorities, of supreme government officials. These trials are rare and they occur when the Supreme Court has to hear investigations of the Prosecutor General with evidence of official’s crime. Last year we heard two or three such trials, where the Supreme Court accepted the arguments of the Prosecutor General and passed a positive resolution for the existence of evidence of committed crime. Presently the activity of these persons is investigated by the Prosecutor General’s Office.

How do you collaborate with the legislature? Do they give you good laws?
It would have been very nice if all the laws were good and always worked well. Unfortunately, this wasn’t always the case over this long and complicated period. Now we witness orderliness in legislation. Nevertheless, the legislative basis in Russia is too complex and therefore our interaction with the legislature is very close. This explains the fact that the Supreme Court has legislative initiative under the Constitution, i.e. it can enter a bill in the State Duma, which concerns the judicial activity. Our legislative initiatives are compulsorily discussed in all committees and commissions before they are presented at a plenary session. Furthermore, the Supreme Court, being a subject of legislative initiative, receives all draft bills, entered in the State Duma. We give our opinion on some of them, and on others, which are related for example to changes in the Criminal Code, we give our resolutions – whether we support them or not. If we think the law is unacceptable, we give our reasons: why in our view this bill cannot be submitted in this form and therefore we amend and augment it. This is an extremely important, constructive, and I would say creative activity. It is always very lively, sometimes accompanied by emotional debates, which are inevitable.

Evidently our legislator and the other powers have very drawn very serious conclusions from the past period of establishment of democracy and civil society. Today I would characterize our country thus: Positive development of the issues of statehood and at the same time very good development of the institutions of civil society. It is important that this happen in interrelation, since the state and society are one. They should develop on a democratic base, on the basis of the Constitution and the international legal system. The Constitution of the Russian Federation provides that the generally recognized principles and norms of international law and international treaties are part of the legal system of Russia. The international treaty has precedence over the national law legislation. This principle is already working, the global democratic values have been applied not only in our Constitution and legislation but in our judicial practice too, with the application of international treaties in the hearing of civil, administrative and criminal cases.

What are the main challenges facing the judiciary in Russia at present?
At present our aim is to improve our activity, to enable everyone to work as efficiently as possible and in coordination. We are working on the issues of greater specialization in regard to minors, not only concerning criminal actions against minors, but all related to the protection of the minors’ interests, including their upbringing, material rights, etc. In this respect there is a project to set up a specialized system of courts. Today, on the basis of the constitution and our legislation such specialized courts have already been established.

We are working very hard to improve the control of the legal content of the laws. This is extremely important. For a law to be passed it must be consistent legally. If it lacks legal content, it would not be consistent with the constitution and the generally accepted principles of international law. Rather it would be harmful to society.

The issues of improvement of the hearing of public lawsuits are very important. I suppose Bulgaria has gone far ahead. It has a specialized administrative court. We don’t have one yet. We introduced specialization within the system. At the Supreme Court we think it is necessary to establish this vertical line of administrative courts, subordinated to the administrative lawsuits college at the Supreme Court of Russia. We have already submitted such draft bill for a federal constitutional law to the State Duma. It has been passed at first reading. Last year we also entered a bill on administrative jurisdiction. The litigations between the citizens and the authorities, officials or the bodies of self-government are most topical and important to the people and they should be regulated in a special procedure. We drafted exactly this kind of law together with eminent Russian experts in administrative law.

Quite recently the Supreme Court tabled a bill at the Duma to amend and augment the Civil Procedure Code, aimed at improving the proceedings in the order of supervision. The order of supervision for trying civil lawsuits in Russia is very complicated and doubtlessly it has to simplified.

We adhere to court practice, but it always confronts us with some issues or other, which need to be solved. We receive extensive correspondence about issues arising in trials. We publish a quarterly overview of court practice, analyzing these issues.

What is your vision of the cooperation between our two countries in the juridical sphere?
As up to now, constructive and creative, and perhaps even more substantial.

I would like to convey my best wishes to all my colleagues, to all jurists in Bulgaria. I wish them good health, despite their complicated work, and let us never forget that man stands behind the issues we are trying to solve. Let us always remember that in a society the source of power is not the official, but the people, that the primary value of this society is man – his rights and freedoms.