The Constitutional Court emphasises the binding nature of Supreme Court interpretations

The Constitutional Court effectively admits their law-making potential  

In a decree adopted on 23 December 2013, which dealt with the constitutionality of a provision of Art 1158 of the Civil Code, the Constitutional Court has articulated a number of important ideas regarding the power of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court of Russia to give to courts of general jurisdiction interpretations (“explanations”) as to how to correctly apply laws.

 

The Constitutional Court came to conclusion that:  

 

- this power aims at sustaining uniformity in interpretation and application of law by courts of general jurisdiction and thus constitutes an element of the constitutional mechanism of safeguarding the integrity and consistency of the Russian legal system, based on the prescriptions of Arts 15 (part 1), 17, 18, 19 and 120 of the Russian Constitution;

- the purpose of such explanations is removal of uncertainty of a rule, the ensuring of its unequivocal interpretation and uniform application, as well as an adequate and timely adaptation of the rule, in the entirety of its letter and spirit, to a particular area of social relations taken in their dynamics;

- the application by courts of general jurisdiction of particular legal rules in the course of judicial consideration must correlate with the explanations given in a decree of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court; the contrary may testify to an error being made by the court when solving a dispute;

- in the event of court decisions being inconsistent with the decrees of the Plenary Session, such decisions may be reversed;

- at the same time, however, it is necessary to observe the principle of  sustaining citizens’ trust in law, which implies a reasonable stability of legal regulation and inadmissibility of making arbitrary changes into current system of rules, and also  - in case of necessity – providing citizens with the opportunity (for instance, by way of introducing an interim regulation) to adapt within a reasonable period to the changes occurred. 

It appears that thus the Constitutional Court has reinforced the binding nature of Plenary Session  interpretive decrees for courts, such bindingness having been formally lost through its omission in the Law on courts of general jurisdiction, adopted in 2011. Besides, it follows from the considerations of the Constitutional Court that such decrees of Plenary Session may in fact be an instrument of law-creation, because they effectively change legal regulation and, as a result, should operate in time in very much the same manner as legislative provisions normally apply.