Basic Principles of the Status of Judges under judicial system of Russian Federation

COOPERATION WITH MASS MEDIA BY THE RUSSIAN JUDGES

Article 13. Cooperation with the Mass Media

1. The effectiveness of judicial activities depends on the public trust, on the due understanding by the society of the legal motives of decisions, adopted by the court.

In order to inform the society about the work of the court in an objective, trustworthy and timely way, a judge should cooperate with representatives of the mass media.

2. A judge should promote the professional representation of work of the court and judges in the mass media, as this not only helps form the legal awareness of citizens and strengthen the authority of justice, but also helps the mass media in performing their important public function of informing the citizens of all socially significant events.

3. When judicial activity is represented in the mass media, a judge should act with discretion, must not comment on the merits of a case, in which a final judicial act has not yet been passed. However, this does not deprive the judge of the right to provide information about the procedural stages of consideration of the case. In an already considered case, a judge is entitled to give oral or written clarifications on an adopted judicial act.

4. A judge should act in a reserved and correct way when commenting on decisions of fellow judges. A judge may clarify or comment decisions adopted by that judge, voice her/his opinion on the established practice of application of material and/or procedural law norms.

Within the judicial community, a judge may voice disagreement with the conduct of fellow judges in order to rectify defects in the administration of justice, prevent and eradicate the violations of constitutional and international law principles of publicity of judicial proceedings.

5. If the activity of a judge is represented in the mass media in such a way that a disrupted image of the work of courts and judges appears, every judge should choose the form of reaction to such reports on her/his own, based on the legal means that judge has as a citizen. Personal application of a judge for honor and dignity protection to the law enforcement or personal application to the mass media for a public answer to criticism only seems appropriate when all other methods of reaction are exhausted or when it seems impossible to resort to them.

6. When answering public criticism, a judge should act in a reserved and discrete way. In cases, when the authority and impartiality of justice may be harmed as a result of unfounded criticism of actions of a judge in the mass media, the preferred form of answer to the criticism is a publication in the mass media of a commentary of the press service of the court and/or of a body of the Judicial Department at the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, and of a body of the judiciary.

SOURCE: Code of Judicial Ethics

Adopted by the 8th All-Russia Congress of Judges on 19 December 2012

As amended by Ruling of the 9th All-Russia Congress of Judges on 8 December 2016