Legal issue: whether the contested provisions are constitutional, as long as they obligate the court to suspend proceedings in the event of reorganisation of the legal person which is a party to the case at hand until its legal successor is determined, and as long as they do not enable the court to take into account the circumstances of the case, including the real possibility to decide the case and enforce the decision before the reorganisation is complete?

Ratio decidendi: the Court held the contested provisions to be unconstitutional and obligated the federal legislator to make appropriate changes in the law to enable the courts of general jurisdiction to continue proceedings with due regard to and the assessment of all the circumstances of particular case. In so doing, the Court noted that the arbitrazh (commercial) procedural law does allow doing this, and referred to its previous legal positions saying that the civil procedure by which judicial power is exercised by courts of general jurisdiction and arbitrazh (commercial) courts must be similar in its principles and basic features for both kinds of courts. In the present case the difference in regulation of proceedings in those courts is not justifiable and therefore violates the constitutional principle of equality of all before the law and the court set forth in Art 19 (part 1) of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, and the right to just public examination of the case within a reasonable term.