Justified means guilty: revelations of a former judge

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Lawyer Ilya Utkin worked as a magistrate for three years, but resigned due to disagreements with the leadership. Today Utkin cooperates with the public human rights organization "Rus Sitting", to whose website he gave an extensive and very informative interview about the work of the domestic legal proceedings. The Kramola portal publishes the most interesting places from it.

The Russian court is a well-oiled system, it is such a vertical that even in the army never dreamed of

How to become a judge

Get a law degree, then gain five years of experience. I already had 5 years of experience by my 25th birthday. I have been working since my second year at the university. My first place of work was the Moscow Industrial Bank. A year later, I left there and became the deputy director of legal work at a local oil firm. And then he became a judge.

Formally, you need 5 years of practice in any legal organization. The types of legal positions are indicated in some special list. There are special positions that are considered legal seniority. You need to understand that there is work experience, and there is legal experience. For example, work as an investigator is included in the legal experience, but work as an operative (operative worker - ed.) Is not. And even in courts, some secretaries have work included in their seniority, while some do not.

The procedure is as follows: an exam is passed, the qualification board recommends you for a vacant position. After that, you are waiting for a presidential decree, which can be expected for years. The decree is signed by the president, from that moment you can start working as a judge. The Judicial Department will issue an appropriate order. If we are talking about the magistrate, then everything is faster, because here we do without the president. You are approved by the regional assembly of deputies.

I talked about the formal side. In fact, it looks like this. For the vacant position, the qualification board recommends someone who has agreed with the chairman of the court. Even if we are talking about a magistrate, they are still supervised by the chairman of the district court. And he decides personnel issues - with whom he will work and with whom he will not work.

By the way, about the candidates for the position of judge. I will reveal a terrible secret. In addition to all those formal nuances about practice and education, there is one more point, informal, closed, which is set out in a closed order of the Supreme Court. This is a certificate from the FSB about loyalty, about suitability for this position. It `s naturally. And also each judge has a personal file, which contains all the information about this judge. We turn over the last sheet, on the crust at the end we see an envelope, it is always sealed, the employees of the judicial department cannot read what is there. It can only be opened by members of the qualification board, the chairman of the regional court, or the Moscow City Court.

These are all FSB-shnye certificates, and this is so. There is a special technique. All judges and candidate judges are released from work for two days and undergo tests. Absolutely all psychophysiological tests in a neuropsychiatric dispensary, a bunch of techniques, a bunch of programs. From IQ to personality development and stress tolerance. Full characterization of the personality. You are actually naked there. By the way, the psychologist with whom I passed the tests immediately told me that I should not be a judge.

Who is the average judge

When a person goes to work as a judge, when he is young, he has some kind of ambition. And when he worked in this system and entered the nomenclature, when he has some kind of career, his worldview changes dramatically. He is no longer interested in the concept of justice, everyone devours such concepts as reporting, material interest. To make a career, as I said, you need to have correct reports. In the reports, the judge has only two criteria - the timing of the consideration of cases and the percentage of approval of the appealed decisions and sentences. That is, the more the higher instance overturned the decisions and sentences of the judge, the worse for the judge. Moreover, this does not necessarily mean the abolition of the sentence, it includes everything - in fact, any changes. So a person who gets into this system, makes a career, begins to think about how he would have this career better and how fewer of any problems would be. Career is influenced by class. Here I have the 5th qualification class, the smaller one. And the higher your class, the greater the wage premium. The class is assigned by the qualification board. The qualification collegium, which considers the personal case of a judge who is assigned the next class, checks everything - reports, complaints to the qualification collegium. If good reports and the minimum number of complaints or grievances are unfounded, a grade is awarded, and this is a stepping stone to career advancement. They can be transferred to the regional court - this is a good promotion. I know human tragedies when a person was not taken to the regional court for some reason. So, if a person wants to take some place, what kind of justice is there, what are the concepts, what are the human destinies? All this is no longer there.

Nuance. It depends on where the person comes from. If a person came from the system - a former investigator, prosecutor's office - he is already ready for a career in court. This is actually an honorable pension for him. The court is just one of the constituent parts of the existing system. It's just that people who are ready for this system are now getting into court. Therefore, lawyers are not hired as judges. We can mess up reporting. I was just one of the young, ambitious, believing in justice. Now I'm not ashamed to say this. But as soon as I passed an acquittal, and I rendered an acquittal not because I wanted to, but because the court department for the first time to newly appointed judges handed out manuals where they were printed, when and what sentences we should pass so that we do not screw up anything … And there was one acquittal that matched the offense I was considering. I passed the verdict in the same way, acquitted. The appeal successfully canceled it, the person was convicted. Then I wrote to the chairman of the regional court an explanatory note - how did it happen that I passed an acquittal. And I could not already refer to the training manual, I would look like an idiot.

How sentences are passed

Everything is decided and everything is clear. First, the verdict must be guilty. I have friends, judges who have worked for a very long time, in a private conversation they said:

“Imagine, I don’t even know how the“acquittal”is spelled, I have never endured such a sentence in my life.”

Here I am the judge, I am considering the case, I understand what needs to be justified. What I should do? Justify? But I know that then the prosecutor's office will write a submission, and the higher court will overturn my acquittal. And in order to substantiate why a person needs to be condemned here and how much to condemn, I need to rack my brains. But I know that any party in a big case will appeal my decision. What will I do? I will go to a higher authority, where there is a curator, and I will talk about what I better do, I will hear advice, and I will do so. That is, it does not go from top to bottom, it goes from bottom to top. There is a regional court, the regional court is subordinate to the regional courts of the region. In the regional court, there are curators-judges who supervise these district courts. The judges go and consult. They can make their own decision, but then it is not a fact that the next time they will be allowed to consult, and the relationship will definitely deteriorate. And in order to be disagreeable, they will cancel not only this decision, but also three more decisions of this judge in a year. And the prizes will be deprived, and he will receive the qualification class not in a year, but in three. It is a well-oiled system. This is such a vertical that even in the army never dreamed of. And by the way, there is a nuance. If the verdict is written correctly, and the higher court considers that the penalty is overstated or understated, they will not overturn the verdict solely on this basis.