Every year, Russian courts acquit on average only around 0.3% of citizens who have been accused. In 1937, courts acquitted 7 percent of the defendants, and between 1941 and 1944 military tribunals acquitted 10-12 percent, says Boris Zołotuchin, quoting statistics. “This demonstrates the accusing attitude of not only individual judges, but the full system,” he adds.
The ultimate Court and the administration of the judicial strategy explain this allegedly high-quality investigation — so they believe that many cases are overturned and do not go to court. Zołotuchin, however, stresses that specified a position can be easy refuted on the basis of legal process statistics.
More likely to win roulette
According to the national Chamber of Lawyers last year, Russian courts convicted a evidence number of defendants in criminal matters — 589 1000 011 people, i.e. most in the last 10 years. At the same time, the acquittal rate fell from 0.26% in 2023 to 0.25%. In another words, the judges gave 400 convictions to 1 acquittal. At the same time last year The chances of acquittal in the Russian court were about 10 times lower than the chances of winning roulette.
Although many people believe that the strict principles of russian justice are already in the past, in fact judges consider themselves to be ‘state services’ and they follow the rule that “the state must not make mistakes”, so the investigators are not incorrect either,” Zolotuchin laments.
Dmitri Taraborin, managing partner of Karpow, Taraborin and Partners, agrees with his colleague. He notes that so far the procedural law in Russian criminal proceedings has been "reduced to a set of non-binding recommendations", and the criminal procedure as specified "practically ceased to exist".
Judicial fiction
Practically any violation of the law in criminal proceedings is considered admissible by the courts and is not an obstacle to a judgment, especially if it is simply a judgement of guilt. It comes to the conclusion that the decisions of the courts are grossly distorting the decisions of the ultimate Court of the Russian Federation, says Taraborin.
As a consequence The judicial strategy has turned into law enforcement support institutions. “The investigators apply, the prosecution supports, the court welcomes — this is how Yekaterina Tiutiunnikova, lawyer of the Moscow Bar Association, describes the reality of the functioning of the Russian judiciary.
Vladimir Putin, however, sees no problem in the low percent of acquittals. “The work of the courts must correspond to the actual situation we have,” he said at the end of December, responding to the proposal to usage the jury more actively in trials. “We will definitely go in this direction, but this movement must correspond to the general readiness of our society to make greater usage of this institution,” he added.
