President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Good afternoon Alexander Vladimirovich!
I would like to discuss a few issues with you. One of them is linked to the problem that we were looking at last week. I mean improving the efficiency of the judicial system. Your department is obviously implicated in this endeavour. I am first of all referring to the Federal Bailiff Service.
It's obvious that the efficiency of the whole justice system depends on the extent to which it can render its decisions in a timely manner. This is what determines its fairness and the attitudes of the people involved in a judicial process, people who are involved in disputes and end up in court looking for solutions to complex issues.
Let's talk about how we can further develop this system to enable it to be an effective component of the overall system of justice in the country.
Justice Minister Alexander Konovalov: You are absolutely right. When people have to wait too long for a judgement, the very idea of litigation is discredited. It's no secret that over the past fifteen years, this has been one of the weakest links in the Russian judicial system.
I think we can say that in recent years the quality and the speed of judicial decisions delivery have improved markedly: last year alone 36 million court enforcement proceedings had to be executed by federal bailiffs in different regions of Russia. More than half of them, 18 million, were executed during the year. Quite a large percentage of these proceedings, about seventy per cent, were completed within the statutory deadline. This is an important achievement.
Nevertheless, we can hardly say at this point that the judicial system is functioning perfectly. A typical court officer's caseload is too large and the inadequate social safety net for this category of civil servants creates additional problems in filling staff vacancies and affects the quality of the work done by bailiffs.
First, therefore, we must come up with a means of improving the justice service itself, the status of its bailiffs, and their desire to maximise the speed and effectiveness with which judgements are lawfully executed.
Secondly, it is important to apply innovative mechanisms for the enforcement of court decisions, including coordinating our activities with those of the tax service, land registry services, accounting services and capital asset registration.
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Dmitry Medvedev: Let us think about how we improve legislation on these issues. This is all the more important because this is a delicate, sensitive area. All sorts of swindlers flock to it in order to take advantage of decisions that are associated with the redistribution of property. Corporate raiders can also profit by using levers designed for the state.
Therefore on the one hand we need to strengthen logistical support for bailiffs and continue to improve their social status, and on the other hand flush out the system and improve its functioning.
Alexander Konovalov: We have prepared various proposals, including ones related to the concept of developing the service. I think that they will be helpful today.