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Society and law: The 3rd St Petersburg International Legal Forum
The St Petersburg International Legal Forum was established in 2011 by a presidential directive. During the three years of its existence, the forum has become known as a high-level platform for dialogue between the government, businesspeople, lawyers, judges, economists and the world’s leading research fellows.
Transcript:
Alexander Konovalov (Minister of Justice): Ladies and gentlemen, I’m pleased to welcome you to the opening of the 3rd St Petersburg International Legal Forum.
This year the plenary session of the forum is being held at a unique venue: the new Mariinsky Theatre, which opened just two weeks ago. It was built not far from the site of the first permanent theatre in the city, the Kamenny (Stone) Theatre. It was the inspiration for the famous Mariinsky Theatre, which is known for its renowned performers and an outstanding drama school plus the harmonious combination of conservatism, tradition and the preservation of cultural heritage. It combines tradition with a new, sometimes revolutionary, approach to classical and modern productions.
Experts say that the magnificent acoustics of this hall enable each tone and aspect of a musical piece to be emphasised. Without a doubt this venue has beautiful interiors, wonderful acoustics and is home to brilliant performances from musicians and their instruments. However, none of this would mean anything without the music, which teaches the public about timeless values, people in history, mankind itself and its quest and striving for truth and love. Just like music, justice and the law should (regardless of the excellent skills of lawyers) serve the basic values of law, protect people, their freedom and safety, fight lawlessness and defend justice.
Ladies and gentlemen! We are confident that all participants of the 3rd St Petersburg International Legal Forum and everyone present here share this understanding of the law and its administration. That’s why it is so important to see all forum participants here. For the third time, St Petersburg is providing the platforms for a thoroughly competent and lively discussion by experts, representatives of various fields of legal expertise and law schools on a wide range of legal issues.
Today we expect nearly 60 roundtable discussions on a broad range of issues as part of the forum, from nuclear law to sport law, from regulating relations in the sphere of arts and culture to regulating subsoil use. We hope that the quality of discussions that will be held annually at the International Legal Forum in St Petersburg will provide for its gradual transformation into a specific business incubator for new approaches and new ideas in law enforcement that will be applied in Russia and everywhere beyond.
Ladies and gentlemen, we regard the first two forums that were held in St Petersburg as a good beginning, and now is the time for action. Welcome to St Petersburg! I wish you all success!
Presenter: Ladies and gentlemen, I invite onstage the plenary meeting’s moderator Alexander Vershinin, general director of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library, DSc in Law, and participants in the plenary meeting of the 3rd St Petersburg International Legal Forum Valery Zorkin, chairman of the Russian Constitutional Court; professor Timothy Endicott, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Oxford University; His Excellency Mr Peter Tomka, President of the International Court of Justice; His Excellency Mr Ivo Opstelten, Minister of Security and Justice of the Netherlands; Mr Michael Reynolds, President of the International Bar Association; and Berik Imashev, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
I welcome Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev.
Dmitry Medvedev: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues. I welcome all those who have arrived in St Petersburg for the 3rd International Legal Forum. I think that the organisers’ idea to make the forum a traditional and necessary event in the schedule of many lawyers has been realised. I am pleased that today my colleagues, leading experts from different countries, who represent different spheres of law and jurisprudence, are here in this room. There are many new faces here too – fortunately this wonderful hall can accommodate all of us – as well as those who attended previous forums. I will repeat that I find this to be evidence of the forum’s popularity. I can also add to what has already been said about the forum’s location, the recently opened stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. You are among the first visitors to this hall and can evaluate its uniqueness and the highest level of acoustics. Anyway I hope that what I am saying can be heard on the other end of the hall, and in the balcony.
It is hard to build such a modern facility and it is even harder to breathe life into its new walls. This resembles the objective Russia faced twenty years ago when the legal framework of our country was being formed and new economy was being established.
This year marks the 20th anniversary since the establishment of the Russian Constitution and the new Russian Parliament. A large number of laws have been passed that have defined Russia’s development in these twenty years. Fundamental documents and codes have been passed, including the Civil Code, which is a major achievement of lawyers who are also present in this hall. I wouldn’t say we have succeeded in everything, but that would have been impossible.
I am confident that legislation will be improved anyway – and I hope that you think so too. The rules will change as life itself calls for improving our legal system.
A plenary meeting of this forum a year ago focused on new challenges in a globalised world. We also discussed competition and cooperation between legal systems. There have been changes since then, but overall instability in the global economy only confirms the positions we formulated last year. At the same time, there have been new trends, some of them related to the interdependence of the national legal systems and their correlation with international law. Immanuel Kant wrote about this in his time.
By the way, I recently read a book on this issue by one of our prominent scientists, Sergei Alekseyev, who passed away not long ago. He surely was an intellectual.
Now I’d like to talk about several specific issues. The first concerns the competitiveness of national legal systems or national jurisdictions, which is very important both for individuals and for businesses, including small firms and global multinationals.
The development of communication technologies, international integration and business globalisation has created an illusion that a state affiliation of people and companies are no longer important. Some people live in one country but have businesses in other countries and property in still other countries, and it is a fact that the business environment is often the key argument for choosing a nationality. There is fresh evidence of this. The same is true of multinational corporations, which no longer feel legally connected to the country where they originated or are headquartered, or where their key business interests lie.
But the global economic recession, which has lasted for a long time, has shown that this conclusion is premature, to say the least. We see that the need to support national businesses leads to attempts to re-nationalise legal systems and in some cases slows integration and even results in the rebuilding of legal barriers on the border. No wonder people and companies seek the assistance and protection of their respective countries.
Current cataclysms on the global markets have forced businesses to scrutinise national legislation more closely, and it is notable that this is a two-way street: the government offers tax concessions, discounted loans and subsidies in the hope that businesses will not use so-called grey schemes but will play by the rules and respect the balance of private and public interests.
Even those countries which traditionally held their doors open to foreign business, including Europe, are more widely using their national legal systems. National legislation is becoming a competitive advantage for luring businesses back to their home countries. It offers a positive impetus for developing national legislation, creating favourable business conditions and improving the investment climate.
It is vital to adopt standards that will preclude unfair competition between legislations, which sometimes happens, and that will also establish the rules of behaviour in the competition of national legislations and the limits of nationalisation and liberalisation of legislations. These standards must include the settlement of conflicts between the courts’ competences, mutual recognition and implementation of decisions of foreign courts, as well as legal guarantees during the sequestration of property, deprivation of personal freedom and criminal prosecution. The relevant legal systems must be thoroughly reviewed and substantiated.
As for concrete actions, we have consistently improved corporate legislation as of late. We’re trying to make Russian legislation more attractive for doing business and to make the rules of the business game understandable and transparent. A federal law has been drafted within the framework of the roadmap on optimising the procedure for establishing businesses.
In accordance with this draft law, the time it takes to incorporate a legal entity with state extrabudgetary funds will be reduced from five to three business days. The results of this roadmap will, of course, improve our positions overall and improve Russia’s position on international rankings, which we are not entirely satisfied with, to put it mildly. Our goal is to move into the top 20 countries in terms of ease of starting a new business. Amendments to the Civil Code have been submitted to the State Duma in order to significant liberalise the law on private joint-stock companies. The issue is about redistributing corporate control by agreement of the participants and improving the accountability of individuals in charge of companies, including so-called shadow directors.
In addition, work is underway to develop an institution that provides an alternative to judicial consideration of disputes. Of course, I mean commercial arbitration, the arbitration tribunal, which is sought after by businesses as a means of fast, high-quality and professional settlement of civil disputes and as a guarantee that the rights and interests of entrepreneurs are protected. Frankly, Russian arbitration still has a long way to go compared to other countries. The faster we advance in this area, the better it’ll be for businesses and the judicial system, which is overburdened with routine cases.
Clearly, the appeal of national jurisdiction and a favourable business environment largely depend on the openness of the government, the quality of government administration and government services. Like other countries, increasing amounts of data about the work of ministries and departments are being posted online. Draft laws and regulations prepared by the Government are publicly discussed, which, of course, improves public oversight over the legislative process.
The Government has submitted draft laws to the Duma that are designed to increase the transparency of the judicial system. For example, judges are required to make public information about so-called non-procedural appeals on cases under their consideration (which is practised in a number of highly successful jurisdictions). The draft laws additionally regulate the bringing of judges to disciplinary liability. It is planned to equip the courts with audio and video recording equipment and expand access to information about their online activities.
We can see the positive results of this work, and we will certainly continue to do it. Of course, there are difficulties as well – for example, the separation of publicly available information from personal data. The arbitration courts have had a great deal of success in this area. Today, they provide almost full access to all judicial acts and are willing to open many case records. The situation with courts of general jurisdiction – the ones that our citizens use more often than any other courts – is more complicated. Like in any judicial system, the confidentiality of personal information is a priority. In order to publish information on court cases, personal information should be redacted, which is a difficult and time-consuming task, especially since it is often difficult to determine the boundaries of the private sphere in a global information society. We are now discussing this issue with experts and lawmakers. It is essential to resolve it without any detriment to individual rights.
There’s one more point that I would like to make: openness and clear-cut rules that must be respected both domestically and internationally. The principle of sovereign equality of states and the related property immunity remains an imperative of international law.
Many Russian companies (either directly or through representatives) work in foreign countries. Everybody is aware of instances where such companies are discriminated against or used in underhand foreign policy dealings, and their property is jeopardised. Court proceedings (not secret, either) are often used as a tool to exert political pressure on a particular state. This, of course, leads to tensions between the countries, discredits the notion of rule of law, undermines the credibility of international law and ultimately harms those who engage in unilateral actions and violate international law. We are monitoring such situations. Like any other state, we will respond to them and take appropriate measures in accordance with international law. In addition, we are thinking about protecting the interests of the Russian state and its interests in foreign countries. We are ready to respond to them on Russian territory. In particular, a special law is being drafted regarding the property immunity of the state. It will establish modern and fairly clear rules of foreclosure on the property of a foreign state under Russian jurisdiction, which will hopefully enhance its competitiveness.
There’s one more issue related to international investment regulation. The shortcomings of modern international law in the field of investments, which was developed back in the pre-globalisation era in the 1970s, have become particularly evident during the recent economic crisis. I’m talking about the legal situation where foreign investors enjoyed more privileged treatment than domestic ones. Such privileges are provided in many states. We have them in Russia as well, such as the well-known “grandfather clause”, which allows foreign investors to avoid the effect of new laws on taxation and other spheres, going as far as withdrawing from national jurisdiction during the resolution of disputes between companies with foreign investment. This encourages various offshore schemes where they pretend to import foreign capital into Russia and attempt to manipulate the judicial jurisdiction. All this hinders real investments and distorts the many international treaties on international protection and promotion of foreign investment that we have signed and ratified.
We are certainly interested in foreign investments in the Russian economy, and I hope that we are doing enough to attract them. In terms of the amounts of investment, Russia is among the fastest growing economies internationally. However, I’m convinced that the rights of domestic and foreign investors should be protected equally. We need new legal mechanisms for countries that receive investments. We will begin to develop them in the near future.
By the way, we have discussed many of the issues that I’m raising now at G20 and other international meetings, as well as during the development of the legal framework of the Customs Union and the Common Economic Space. We are taking into account international experience, particularly the experience of the European Union, in developing transnational law. This kind of law unites and harmonises the systems of the participating countries, but at the same time does not impose complete uniformity. Importantly, our Eurasian project should preserve the best of what’s available in national jurisdictions, our national legal systems.
All of the above issues are being debated, including by experts from the UN, the Hague Conference on Private International Law and other international judicial institutions whose representatives are here today. Clearly, constructive decisions can be formed only on the basis of consensus with due account of the positions of all interested parties. I hope that the discussion here in this hall and at the sidelines of the forum will be positive and will help address these issues.
Colleagues, I have touched on just a few issues that will be discussed during the forum. There are many complex and very interesting topics for lawyers now. For instance, one of them, which I’ll not discuss now – perhaps others will speak about it – is the growing influence of technology, the internet and social media on the law. I think that our forum can also contribute to this.
I sincerely wish all those present here interesting and productive discussions and, of course, pleasant experiences while staying in St Petersburg, one of the world’s most beautiful cities.
Thank you.
Alexander Vershinin (Moderator of the Forum plenary session, Director General of the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library): Mr Medvedev, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues. As you can see, the plenary session opened with an introduction to the theme of the Forum which is, just to remind you, “Competition and Cooperation between Legal Systems: the Role of the Law in Ensuring the Development of Society, the State and the Economy”.
The speakers at the Plenary Session represent the judicial community and the Bar, national justice bodies and diverse legal schools. It is very clear to me – and you can see it yourselves – that they feel very much at home on this stage of the Mariinsky Theatre, the brand new stage of the Mariinsky Theatre. So we are looking forward to highly authoritative assessments and the most progressive ideas in the legal sphere. We have an hour and 20 minutes, which means every speaker will have up to 10 minutes, or 11 minutes at most. If anyone has any questions or comments on the presentations please let me know.
In accordance with tradition, the discussion at the Plenary Session will be wrapped up by the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev.