“I propose to merge the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation and the Supreme Commercial Court, for which it will be necessary to make amendments to the Constitution of Russia”
"The legal positions formulated by the Presidium and Plenary Session of the Supreme Commercial Court, - they are not only a guidance how to act, but also drafts for future court decisions"
“Let us say that we have a super-precedential law. I mean certain “traditions” in judges’ behaviour, certain attitude towards the authority of the superior court”. (Full version)
“It is impossible not to touch upon recently observed attempts of a significant part of legal community to introduce into Russian law-creation practice the elements of the Anglo-Saxon law of precedent”
Valery Zorkin. The economy and law - a new context // Rossiyskaya Gazeta. 22.05.2014
May 22, 2014
“It is impossible not to touch upon recently observed attempts of a significant part of legal community to introduce into Russian law-creation practice the elements of the Anglo-Saxon law of precedent. Which, I shall emphasise, in contrast to the codified continental (first of all, the German) law was never applied neither in Imperial nor in the Soviet of post-Soviet legal history.
I want to point out that distinctions between these systems of law are not solely formal ones. These distinctions are reflected in the specific character of lawyers’ thinking – from the legislator to a law-enforcer and from an advocate to a public prosecutor. Such distinctions require a prior creation (and organisation of complex systems of using) of precedential evidentiary bases. These distinctions require a profoundly different organisation of the entire legal process, ranging from the drafting of laws to their variegated application. And these distinctions require considerable time for the law-application within new legal system to be recognised as just and legitimate by the popular Russian consciousness.
Therefore I am convinced that all attempts to implant into the Russian legal system the Anglo-Saxon legal sprouts are unjustified and destructive. This is because nowhere in the world any proofs of the Anglo-Saxon system were found, whereas the “transitional period”, inevitable in case of such implantations, will at least partially disorganise and weaken the Russian system of law-determining and law-application (which is still far from being perfect)”. (Full version)