Judicial registry: why parliament is trying to hide high-profile verdicts
The Chairman of the Committee on Legal Policy Denis Maslov (“Servant of the People”) proposes to partially close the information in the register of court decisions. Together with his colleagues, he submitted a legislative initiative (No. 7033-d), which the public sector, in particular the Dejure Foundation and almost 30 other organizations, criticized. Parliament was urged not to support this project, but on May 23 the parliamentary majority voted for it.
People's Deputy Denis Maslov said that the committee is waiting until June 6 for the proposal before the second reading: “The problem is that our enemy, using, among other things, open data from court decisions, receives information, selects targets and strikes. There are, unfortunately, consequences of this. We are open to constructive suggestions from everyone. And taking this into account, the Committee will process the bill for the second reading.”
In the version that was supported by deputies in the first reading, legislators propose to significantly expand the list of information that cannot be disclosed in the texts of court decisions. Such as:
- addresses and names of higher educational institutions related to the defense forces;
- addresses and names of critical infrastructure and state-owned facilities of strategic importance for the economy and security.
Most of this information was and is in the public domain. Strategic objects have long been known to our enemy. And the list of critical infrastructure objects (government authorities, the media, the market for non-banking financial services, the market for payment services, etc.) can constantly change.
The bill also proposed limiting access to court decisions in criminal cases of significant public interest (crimes against the fundamentals of national security, in the area of protecting state secrets, the inviolability of state borders, ensuring conscription and mobilization, or against the established procedure for military service).
Such restrictions should apply not only during wartime, but also a year after it ends.
What do the statistics of sentences for these categories of crimes indicate? (in brackets – the percentage of the total number of sentences passed in criminal cases for the year).
Crime cases
- against the established procedure for military service (war crimes) - 3.6 thousand (4.3%) for 2023 and 2 thousand (3.3%) for 2022;
- in the field of protecting state secrets, the inviolability of state borders, ensuring conscription and mobilization - 1.6 thousand (1.9%) for 2023 and 528 (0.9%) for 2022;
- against the fundamentals of national security - 1.6 thousand (1.8%) for 2023 and 648 (1.1%) for 2022;
- against peace, security of humanity and international law and order – 718 (0.9%) for 2023 and 356 (0.6%) for 2022.
So, in 2023, such cases, information about which may be closed in the near future, amounted to approximately 9% of the total number of criminal cases examined (7.5 thousand in total).
Of course, restricting access to such a large part of court decisions will only further deepen citizens’ distrust in the judicial and law enforcement system. This is despite the fact that trust in the courts is essentially the lowest, and this is critically important for a favorable investment climate.
After all, the public will not be able to find out who and how is being tried for collaboration, high treason, or evasion of mobilization.
In addition, it was planned to give judges the right, at their own discretion, after considering a case in open court, to suppress information in court decisions that “may harm security” and is not subject to disclosure.
And this contradicts the general principle of transparency of the judicial process and carries corruption risks.
Moreover, the closed court format is successfully used in the trial. And if the court understands that some information that may be announced at a court hearing constitutes a state or other secret, it can conduct a hearing of such a case behind closed doors.
The adoption of this bill will limit the right of the public to freely access information from the court registry and exercise control over judicial proceedings, which is not consistent with our European integration policy and may lead to regression on the path to the development of democratic institutions and the development of civil society.
