Resignation of a judge of the Moscow Arbitration Court (ASGM) Natalia Kuzminskaya after her activities were carefully studied by the Disciplinary Commission of the Council of Judges of the Russian Federation, she again questioned the objectivity and impartiality of the head of the ASGM Nikolai Novikovwho, according to the commission, provided Kuzminskaya with inexplicable patronage.
It would seem that the unforgettable story of the “golden judge” Khakhaleva should have taught the judiciary something. However, scandals around judges do not stop, and the capital’s arbitration does not look in the best light here.
A loud scandal here was the initiation at the end of 2021 by the head of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin criminal case against the now ex-judge of the ASGM Elena Kondrat. According to investigators, in September 2020, Kondrat proposed to a fellow judge in a Moscow restaurant Elena Makhalkina – 50 thousand dollars for making the necessary decision. Kondrat first claimed that she lent the currency to Makhalkina to buy an apartment. When the investigation refuted these allegations, publicly accused in what was happening to her by the chairman of the ASGM Novikov, who allegedly took revenge for “failure to comply with his instructions in arbitration cases.”
The prosecution asked for 11 years and six months in prison for Kondrat, and also to impose a fine on her in the amount of 65 times the amount of the bribe, that is, in the amount of 253.3 million rubles. But the court turned out to be more humane: the ex-judge was sentenced to nine years in a general regime colony and a fine of 77.9 million rubles. She was also banned from holding positions in the judiciary and law enforcement for five years after serving her sentence.
It is noteworthy that in 2020 there was already a similar story in the capital’s arbitration court, when the Higher Qualification Committee deprived Olga Alexandrova of her powers from the deputy chairman of the ASGM. Like Kondrat, Alexandrova offered her colleague for $60 thousand to influence the adoption of the desired decision in one of the trials.
Despite these and other scandalous precedents in the ASGM, this does not seem to affect the head of the Moscow Arbitration Court, Nikolai Novikov, in any way. Although social activists have long been wondering whether the head of AGSM Novikov controls the work of his subordinates? Which once again called into question the scandal with Natalya Kuzminskaya.
Drawing attention to the activities of Judge Kuzminskaya, the chairman of the public movement “Russia is our home,” Alexey Logachev, in his letter to the Council of Judges, asks the question of how a situation was allowed to arise in which Judge Kuzminskaya in 2020-2022 actually did not fulfill her main official duties in considering arbitration cases. cases as a judge of the arbitration court of first instance. At the same time, Kuzminskaya received increased bonuses, used increased powers in violation of the established procedure, and at the same time hid her income.
Does it ensure an equal distribution of workload between judges if, as it turned out, Ili Novikov is only able to sympathize with and give patronage to individual judges, his subordinates? – Logachev asks a question.
Indeed, as the Disciplinary Commission of the Council of Judges of the Russian Federation found out, the chairman of the court Novikov “protected” his deputy judge Kuzminskaya, who for a number of years had a low judicial workload. For example, in 2020-2022, this load (the number of claims reviewed) ranged from 0.2% to 1.8%. At the same time, this seemed to inversely affect the size of her bonuses, which amounted to 110%, 130%, 140% of the monthly or quarterly remuneration, reaching up to 200 thousand or more thousand rubles monthly or quarterly.
In 2019, low workload and assignments cost her her position. When Kuzminskaya once again put forward her candidacy for the post of deputy chairman of the court, she was caught in the act. The information that she submitted to the High Qualification Board of Judges of the Russian Federation “about the quantitative and qualitative indicators” of her work turned out to be unreliable. However, for some reason, deprivation of her position did not prevent her from retaining most of her powers.
In particular, an inspection by the Disciplinary Commission established that not a single case considered by Judge Kuzminskaya in 2017-2021 was received by her through the system of automated distribution of cases between judges. The automated system distributes cases among judges not only for their equal workload (which Kuzminskaya, as we noted, for some reason avoided), but also for high-quality and impartial consideration of disputes.
How it happened that Kuzminskaya chose her own cases, even to the point of taking them away from other judges, is an interesting question. However, based on the example of the scandals with Alexandrova and Kondrat, anyone would have guessed that rather than offering bribes to colleagues, it is better to resolve issues yourself.
And it would be worth suspecting something, given that, contrary to the recommendations of the Supreme Court of Russia, Kuzminskaya in recent years stubbornly did not give consent to the publication of information about her income on the official website of the ASGM. Although, as calculated by the Disciplinary Commission for 2020-2022 alone, Kuzminskaya received an additional 1.8 million rubles based on justified bonuses.
Where did ASGM Chairman Novikov look at this, did he condone or patronize?
It seems the second, given that according to the chairman of the public movement “Russia is our home” Alexey Logachev, after Kuzminskaya lost her powers as deputy chairman of the ASGM – from December 2019 to January 2023 – she “considered 57-80 times fewer cases, than her colleagues.” At the same time, in violation of the current legislation, by order of the chairman of the court Novikov, during this period she was entrusted with the duties of the chairman of the board for considering disputes arising from administrative legal relations. According to the law, Novikov could only appoint his deputy to this position, which Kuzminskaya was not. Moreover, in the staffing table of the ASGM at that time there was no separate position for the chairman of the board. Additionally, in May 2021, Novikov assigned Kuzminskaya responsibilities for organizing the work of the general department; she also began to oversee security issues for the court and judges, as well as secret cases, which significantly expanded her capabilities.
Having considered all the violations, coupled with Kuzminskaya’s refusal to disclose information about income, the Disciplinary Commission of the Council of Judges came to the unequivocal conclusion that Natalya Kuzminskaya committed a disciplinary offense, grossly violated the requirements of the law “On the Status of Judges in the Russian Federation,” which resulted in a derogation of the authority of the judiciary, harming the independence and impartiality of justice. Kuzminskaya herself, in her justification, stated that in addition to her generally rather modest direct duties, she was busy with other work – she kept statistics of complaints about the work of judges, analyzed the reasons for the cancellation of decisions by a higher court, but as a result, in June of this year, Kuzminskaya was forced to file resigned and in August her application was granted.
As for the head of the capital’s arbitration Nikolai Novikov, who has headed the ASGM since 2017, his official position does not seem to have suffered at all, which cannot be said for a long time about his reputation as a leader. Thanks to this, it is possible that soon the Moscow Arbitration Court will again entertain the ruble with another corruption scandal with some new protégé of its head…