The V All-Russia Legal Forum-Civil Legislation Reform Held in Moscow
The V All-Russia Legal Forum - Civil Legislation Reform: Legal Regulation of Corporate, Obligation and Real Legal Relations traditionally organised by Garant was held on the 22nd of September at the Izvestiya Hall in Moscow.
Photo by: Alexander Kuzmin
Due to pandemic restrictions the Izvestiya Hall could not allow access for meeting in person Russia's renown law scholars for all who wanted to, so the majority of participants watched it on-line. The forum became one of the most significant events for lawyers from all parts of Russia since it dealt with the most acute and complicated problems of the Russian civil law, and it set a record in terms of participants, over 20,000 this year!
Photo by: Alexander Kuzmin
In his opening speech Dmitry V. Persheyev, Chairman of Garant's Board of Directors described the legislation fluidity shown not only by the number of adopted acts but also by the normative techniques the legislature uses, as evidenced by figures. He graphically demonstrated the variability of the country's basic codes. Thus, Russia's Tax Code is modified on the average once in a fortnight, and the Code of Administrative Offences, once in 10 days. Also mentioned was the "regulatory guillotine" announced three years ago, with its benefits and drawbacks, led to repealing about 20,000 normative acts, truly not a small number, but as compared with roughly 200,000,000 data storage units available in the Garant System it constitutes 0.01%, not much at all in relation to the entire corpus of legislation. The Russian legislation's complexity is growing from year to year.
For instance, a typical law for the last 25 years has become two and a half times longer, and its typical article, three times. The composite readability index on the average has grown up one and a half times.
Pavel V. Krasheninnikov, Chairman, Committee for State Building and Legislation of the State Duma of the Russian Federation dwelt on several topics, he said: "First, we have completed the reform of inheritance law, in 2017 amendments on formation of posthumous inheritance foundations were adopted, in 2018 amendments on the joint will and inheritance contracts. Recently, amendments were adopted concerning the inheriting of personal foundations, they are not yet put in force, and are going, first of all, to help owners of businesses. After adopting amendments to the Fundamental Law we also made amendments to Russia's Civil Code with regard to the relation between international treaties and federal laws. For the nearest future we intend tackling rights in rem, and are going to reach a good level".
Photo by: Alexander Kuzmin
The forum's first block, "Corporate Law after the 2014 Reform of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation", was conducted by Yevgeny A. Sukhanov, Head, Chair of Civil Law, Faculty of Law, M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University, Deputy Chairman of the Council for Codification and Improvement of Civil Legislation under the President of the Russian Federation. He pointed out that participants managed to attend despite coronavirus restrictions, and it was no coincidence that the event started from the corporate law since there existed a contradiction between the Civil Code and special laws.
The round table meeting was attended by Andrey V. Gabov, Chief Research Fellow, Institute of the State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Associate Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Aleksandr A. Kuznetsov, Head of the Corporate Disputes Team of Pepelyayev Group; Dmitry V. Lomakin, Professor, Chair of Civil Law, Faculty of Law, M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University, member of the Scientific Consultative Council under the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. Aleksandra A. Makovskaya, Judge Emeritus, Higher Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation, lecturer of the Faculty of Law, M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University substantiated why only a single law on business undertakings can become an instrument for resolving problems which have piled up in the corporate law. Irina S. Shitkina, Professor, Chair of Business Law, head of the master's programme "Corporate Law" of the Faculty of Law, M.V.Lomonosov Moscow State University dwelt on the problems occurring in cases when a multiple sole executive body heads an organisation, inciting a live response by participants.