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Report on visit of American experts on judicial ethics to Vladivostok
14-15 May 2010 a team of American experts on judicial ethics visited Vladivostok. The delegation included: Collins Fitzpatrick (Circuit Executive, United States Court of Appeals), Judge John Coughenour (U.S. District Court), Justice Martha Walters (Oregon Supreme Court), and Marla Greenstein (Executive Director, Alaska Commission of Judicial Conduct).
The visit continued the exchange of opinions and information between Russian and American experts on matters of ethical conduct of judges that began in 2009. The program of the visit included a round table discussion with members of the Council of Judges’ working group responsible for drafting a new judicial ethics code of the Russian Federation as well as the Russian-American Conference on Judicial Ethics.
Participants of the round table discussed such matters as independence of judges and their accountability, responsibility of judges for violating judicial ethical standards, conflict of interest and recusal, conduct of judges in non-judicial activities and in their capacity as a judge. In addition to that, participants discussed some specific topics related to the Draft judicial ethics code and comments to it made by the American experts, and determined the aspects of the document requiring improvement.
Russian-American Conference on Judicial Ethics was attended by the judges of commercial courts of the Far Eastern district, chief justices of the courts of general jurisdiction of Primorsky Region, representatives of the Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation and the Council of Judges of the Russian Federation.
The conference was opened by Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation Tatiana Andreeva. Her presentation focused on the continuing work on the draft judicial ethics code and some central provisions to be included in it.
The American experts told about the standards regulating conduct of American judges and some differences between the corresponding norms and standards in the US and Russia. Specifically, they touched upon the work of judicial ethics bodies, role and authorities of ethics commissions in the US, questions of finding a balance between freedom of expression and judicial ethical norms.
Reports by the Russian participants included reports by the Chairperson of Primorsky Region’s Qualification Collegium Tatiana Gorbenko, First Deputy Chief Justice (retired) of Saratovsk Regional Court Rimma Volosatykh, and Chief Justice of Lipetsk Regional Court Ivan Markov. They focused on judicial ethics and how those relate to the work of qualification collegia of the Russian Federation, including questions on the scope of mandate of judicial ethics commissions in the Russian Federation, as well as on public declarations made by judges.
The conference was completed by Russian and American participants thanking each other and expressing an interest in continuing the Russian-American judicial dialogue.
Materials from the official websites of the Supreme Commercial Court of the Russian Federation and the Council of Judges of the Russian Federation were used for preparing this text.
