I always believed that the system of precedent helps to reduce corruption in courts. (Full version.)

Judge: Ivanov Anton

In the conditions of chaotically changing legislation the law of precedent is in fact the only protection from the arbitrariness of legislators. (Full version.)

Judge: Ivanov Anton

The Russian judicial system exists for less than 20 years, and therefore it is essentially impossible to encompass everything by precedent. (Full version.)

Judge: Absaliamov Artur

In my view, the approaches to the application of legislation worked out by the Plenary Session of the Supreme Commercial Court constitute acts of official interpretation, have important significance for courts as well as participants of economic relations. (Full version.)

Judge: Strelov Igor

In general I share the view of those who are inclined to gradually lend to the decisions of our courts the role of precedent. (Full version.)

Judge: Ivanov Anton

It is known that the decrees of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Commercial Court are for all courts a source of law, obligatory for application, therefore we, of course, shall follow it. (Full version.)

Judge: Sviridenko Oleg

Introduction by the Supreme Commercial Court of corrections into the settled judicial practice will lead to the instability of the practice, which of and by itself works against justice. (Full version.)

Judge: Bolshova Alla

Those decisions where a legal position on the constitutional meaning of a law is formulated, have precedential significance. This is why they speak more and more frequently of direct precedents of the Constitutional Court. Although not everyone agrees with this, and even among the representatives of the legal community there are those who deny it outright. They say: which precedential significance? The Constitutional Court does not have a right to do so! I believe, this are the worst vestiges of vulgar legal positivism. (Full version.)

Judge: Zorkin Valeriy

The increasingly active introduction of the elements of the law of precedent testifies to the deepening of integration of judicial system of Russia into international judicial community. (Full version.)

Judge: Zorkin Valeriy

It is difficult to imagine some instantaneous act as a result of which the law of precedent shall be created here. In the course of its creation a major role shall belong to the heightening of the authority of  judicial bodies. (Full version.)

Judge: Ivanov Anton

It is fundamentally important that national courts  would follow the development of the law of precedent on the basis of Convention and would follow the principles of jurisprudence elaborated by the [European] Court. (Full version.)

Judge: Wildhaber Luzius

The explanations on the issues of application of legislation, contained in the decrees of the Plenary Session of the Supreme Court of Russia, based on the requirements of the law and generalized data of judicial practice on the national scale, represent a form of judicial precedent of some kind. They are a reference point, which is subject to an obligatory taking into account for the purposes of delivering lawful, well-grounded and justified sentences, decisions, rulings and judgments. (Full version.)

Judge: Demidov Vladimir

Our system of law is not an Anglo-American, but European continental one, which is based, so to speak, on the statute law, not a judicial precedent. Is it good or bad? Judicial precedent does surely have certain advantages: for example, it promotes the stabilization of judicial practice in the long run, but it also has certain disadvantages, and, most importantly, we do not have yet any grounds for introducing the law of precedents neither in customs nor in judicial practice,  because we have very clear principle of judge’s independence in the judicial process – this is a constitutional principle, from which it follows that a judge when deciding an issue determines by himself what to rely upon in adopting his decision. And in the first place he should be guided by statute. (Full version.)

Judge: Baglay Marat

For the purposes of uniform and right application of laws the Supreme Court of Russia regularly publishes surveys of judicial practice – decisions in concrete cases containing a commentary on the essence of the adopted decision and the analysis of the mistakes committed by courts. These precedents sui generis serve as a good help to orient themselves better when considering cases of an analogous category or those similar by their circumstances. (Full version.)

Judge: Lebedev Viacheslav