Most of Russians mistrust national judiciary – poll

(Interfax – MOSCOW, July 31, 2013) Most of Russians have no trust in the national judiciary, Levada Center told Interfax on Wednesday referring to the July poll outcomes.

Almost two-thirds of the respondents (61%) suspect that an average person cannot expect fair justice, and 27% disagree.

The attitude to the Russian judiciary has been changed for the past five years.

Russians polled in 130 towns and cities in 45 regions on June 6-10 are also skeptical about jury trials. In the opinion of 32% of the respondents, jurors are less qualified and experienced and tend to succumb to influences. Twenty-three percent argued that the jury would be fairer than a regular court and its guilty verdicts would be more independent. A quarter of the respondents (26%) said there was no big difference between the jury and the regular court.

Some 23% of the respondents believe that jury trials have reduced the number of guilty verdicts. Ten percent disagreed and alleged an increase in guilty verdicts, and 35% supposed the correlation did not change.

The number of Russians who think “it is better to let one criminal avoid punishment than to put at least one innocent person to jail” has been stable, 60-63%, for the past decade, Levada Center said. The opposite opinion, “it is better to jail two innocents than to let one guilty person go unpunished”, is expressed by 10% to 13%, and 25-30% are unable to answer the question.

Russia introduced jury trials in 1991-1993 with the amendment of its constitution and judiciary legal acts. A pilot project of jury trials was launched in nine areas – the Moscow, Ryazan, Saratov, Ivanovo, Ulyanovsk and Rostov regions and the Stavropol, Ulyanovsk and Rostov territories – and the practice spread to other territories later on. Jury trials have been available throughout Russia since January 1, 2010.