Remote Justice Procedures During the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Russian Federation

The paper aims to form a theoretical model for ensuring the accessibility of justice for participants in the trial through online meetings by solving specific problems in the development of procedural arbitration legislation and the practice of its application. The research objectives are to prepare a scientific assessment of the risks and problems of online litigation through a web conference in the arbitration process and propose ways to improve the law enforcement practice of holding web conferences in arbitration courts. The key ways to achieve the research objective are to study the legal basis for holding online court meetings using online-conference systems; the judicial practice of applying the rules on the participation of parties in a court session through an online conference, using methods of a systemic approach and modeling; as well as formal legal and comparative legal methods. The accessibility of justice is one of the fundamental principles of judicial protection, which determines the purpose and general meaning of judicial activity. During the period of restrictions due to COVID-19, the judicial system of the Russian Federation has taken a significant step forward in the digitalization of justice, primarily in arbitration courts. The pandemic period had encouraged the judicial practice to form the online-conference system that will provide an opportunity for the parties to participate in the court session without physical presence. Within this research, based on the analysis of the procedure of online court sessions, the authors identified the risks of their conduct. Based on the analysis of the current practice of arbitration courts, the authors revealed different and contradictory results. Courts misinterpret the rules of holding a court session using the online-conference system, particularly when parties break regulations while participating in such meetings. The paper raises problems caused by the lack of uniformity of law enforcement practice and different applications of the rules by the courts, regulating the relations of the parties to hold court meetings online using online-conferencing systems in the way of a possible violation of the rights of participants in the trial. The authors identified the risks associated with online court meetings. As a result of the research, the authors formulate proposals to optimize the practice of applying procedural law in terms of using online-conference systems to organize a trial online. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023.