The International Association of Russian Advocates (Association Internationale d’Avocats Russes, Strasbourg) has presented a critical report «The One Big Terrible Bill Act: “Lawyer Monopoly» as a Means of Dismantling the Independent Legal Profession in Russia”.
The developer of the report on the draft bill proposing the introduction of a “lawyer’s monopoly” in Russia, was Andrey Ragulin, a member of the General Council of the Association, Doctor of Law, Associate Professor, Lawyer of the Moscow City Bar Association, Editor-in-Chief of the “Eurasian Advocacy” law journal, Head of the Center for Research on Problems of Organization and Activities of the Legal Profession of the Eurasian Scientific Research Institute of Problems of Law.
The report is a comprehensive scientific and practical analysis of the proposals to introduce in Russia the so-called “lawyers monopoly” on judicial representation and the draft law initiated by the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation (MJ RF) and supported by the Federal Chamber of Advocates (F?A).
The report is devoted to the essence of the “lawyer monopoly”, its positive and negative characteristics, the content of the draft law submitted for public discussion, its predictable consequences, the F?A’s reaction to the draft law, the assessment of risks and violations of international standards. The draft law is considered in the general context of changes in the legislation on advocacy and advocacy in Russia. The focus is on assessing the draft law’s compliance with socio-economic and legal realities, as well as international standards of independence of the legal profession, the norms of the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the current Russian legislation.
The author of the report clearly shows that under the guise of “lawyer’s monopoly”, presented in the form of “professionalization of judicial representation”, Russia is completing the progressive subordination of the Bar and the entire legal profession to the state structures, which had been started earlier.
The report substantiates that the draft law on the introduction of a “lawyer monopoly”, initiated by the MJ RF and supported by the F?A, formally aimed at the “professionalization of judicial representation”, is an instrument of counter-reform, carried out in order to dismantle the independent legal profession and total subordination of lawyers and legal professionals to the state. The proposed requirement of mandatory lawyer status for court representatives is in fact not related to qualification or ethics, but is an organizational measure that turns the Bar into an instrument of state regulation of the legal market.
