Use of Web Conferences in Arbitration Courts of the Russian Federation: Issues of Legal Regulation

ABSTRACT

The initiation of restrictive measures throughout the Russian Federation in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, as well as the inability of courts to function as usual, demonstrated a high need to improve judicial activity in terms of the use of modern information technologies. On the one hand, the impossibility of holding court hearings and performing other procedural actions in connection with the ban on visiting court buildings by the participants in the process entailed the suspension / postponement of court proceedings in most cases (except for those that were classified as urgent), on the other hand it stimulated a quick response to the current situation in the form of the creation of new online judicial services. The author analyses the peculiarities of holding a court session by using a web conference, highlights the advantages, and indicates the existing risks. In the course of the study the author comes to the conclusion that the emergence of the possibility of holding court sessions through web conferences made it possible to optimize the activities of the courts and ensure the prompt access of individuals to the performance of certain procedural actions in an electronic and remote format, which is definitely the future of the judicial system. The need for these transformations is unconditional. Research contribution the mechanism for conducting court sessions in the online format should be provided for in the relevant regulatory legal act, in which both procedural and technological solutions should be fixed. Without proper legislative regulation, it is impossible to fully ensure access to justice and guarantee the observance of the rights of persons participating in a court session via a web conference. © 2021 ACM.