Too Much of a Good Thing? Rethinking Access to Justice in Contemporary Russia

Belying the public perception of widespread distrust of the courts, Russians have been flocking to the courts in recent years. Judges and court officials consistently complain about the resulting burden. The official caseload data confirm that judges are handling an extraordinary number of cases. This paper explores whether this “open door” policy makes sense. The procedural codes governing the Russian courts reflect a conscious choice to make it as easy as possible for Russian individuals and companies to gain access to the courts. Courts are a unique institutional resource. Ideally, access to courts should be limited to cases in which there is a genuine dispute that has proven resistant to the parties’ efforts to resolve on their own. The author’s field work suggests that Russian courts are being flooded by simple cases in which the results are a foregone conclusion. Yet judicial resources are expended in an effort to give these parties their day in court. The Russian judicial system now finds itself at a cross-road. Its policy of increasing the capacity of the system  to accommodate the increased caseload has likely reached the limit of its usefulness and feasibility. The author lays out alternative policy options, including diverting “empty” cases to mediation, empowering judges to discipline lawyers when they fail to live up to their responsibilities, reinforcing the power of judges to dismiss cases when the parties show up empty-handed or fail to show up, and creating alternative institutions to handle the “empty” cases.