Individual Corruption

The judiciary is among the most corrupt public institutions in Russia, as illustrated by Transparency International's Global Corruption Barometer 2010. According to the report, more than a quarter of the surveyed households consider it as 'extremely corrupt', while a smaller part reports having paid a bribe in 2009. The courts are reported to be more corrupt in the lower echelons of the judicial hierarchy, according to the Bertelsmann Foundation 2010. 

According to Freedom House 2011, Russia's reformed criminal procedure code has allowed jury trials in most of the country since 2003. While juries are more likely than judges to find defendants not guilty, these verdicts are frequently overturned by a higher court, which can send a case back for retrial as many times as necessary to achieve the desired outcome.

Business Corruption

According to the US Department of State 2011, independent dispute resolution in Russia can be difficult to obtain as the judicial system is still developing. Among the problems for companies mentioned by the report in relation to Russian courts is the lack of judicial independence and widespread corruption. Corruption ranges from bribes of judges and prosecutors to fabrication of evidence. Judges will in some cases trade favourable court rulings for bribes. According to the EBRD & World Bank BEEPS Russia 2008, bribes paid by companies are not uncommon in their dealings with courts, and a substantial part of the surveyed companies indicates that the functioning of the judiciary poses a problem for doing business in Russia.

According to the Bertelsmann Foundation 2010, in surveys, businesspeople regularly state that court cases against state agencies are more likely to be unfair than cases against rival companies. To solve investment or trade disputes in Russia, foreign lawyers often refer foreign companies to international arbitration in Stockholm or to courts abroad. However, the problem is that the decisions taken abroad still have to be enforced in Russia. The bailiff system of enforcing court decisions is still not effective, and the bailiff ultimately reports to the Ministry of Justice and not the courts, according to the US Department of State 2011. Consequently, according to the report, the courts can do little to ensure the actual enforcement of decisions. On some occasions the bailiffs opt not to enforce specific court decisions. Freedom House 2009 reports that only half of Russian court decisions are actually implemented, and creditors typically receive only 20% of what they are owed, according to the Court Bailiff Service.

Political Corruption

According to Freedom House 2011, the judiciary lacks independence from the executive branch, in part because judges are often dependent on court chairmen for promotions and bonuses, and must follow Kremlin preferences in order to advance. Political interference in the selection of judges for individual cases is reportedly the norm. This is acknowledged by the GRECO Compliance Report 2011, according to which, the independence of the judiciary still remains a particularly critical matter to be addressed. In many instances, judges are pressured to decide in favour of state institutions, or feel associated with the state institution in question. 

This perception is supported by the findings of the former German justice minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger in Council of Europe Allegations of Politically-motivated Abuses of the Criminal Justice System in Council of Europe Member States 2009 report, in which she alleges widespread political abuse of the Russian courts. The report reveals that the practice of the so-called 'telephone justice' - an official calling and telling a judge how to rule - has evolved for the worse. Hence, according to Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, Russian judges have become so worried about making a mistake that they call the officials themselves to ask for instructions. Furthermore, the report alleges that defence lawyers are often subjected to searches, seizures and 'other forms of pressure'. Nonetheless, at the same time, the report acknowledges some progress in the judicial system, such as salary raises for judges to reduce their susceptibility to corruption.

In the higher political levels, Russia has seen a number of cases of selective enforcement of law. The most prominent case is that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who was sentenced to 8 years in prison on charges of fraud and tax evasion. In the trial, formal court proceedings were violated in the interest of the government, thus revealing the executive influence over the legal system. Critics of the Kremlin argue that the trial was politically motivated, because Khodorkovsky posed a potential threat to President Putin. Khodorkovsky is now on trial on new embezzlement and money laundering charges and faces up to 22 more years in prison if convicted, as reported by ABC News. Following a conviction on new charges in December 2010, Khodorkovsky's prison term was extended until 2017, as alleged by Freedom House 2011. In February 2011, the chairman of Russia's Supreme Court suggested reviving an old Soviet practice under which a maximum sentence for a person charged with different crimes should not exceed the sentence attached to the most serious charge. For this reason, since Khodorkovsky has been in jail since October 2003, this would mean releasing him in October 2012, as reported in a 2011 article by The Economist.

In February 2009, the deputy head of the Russian Supreme Court, Alexander Karpov, resigned after his son was arrested on bribery charges. In addition, a senior official from the Federal Financial Monitoring Service, Russia's financial watchdog, was arrested on bribery charges in 2008, while in February 2009 Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin was accused of large-scale theft of state funds by a senior prosecutor.

According to the US Department of State 2010, increases in judges' salaries in 2009 have not resulted in any substantial reduction in judges' susceptibility to corruption. Nevertheless, as emphasised by the source, in the last four years, an average of 70 judges every year have been removed from office for various offences, including corruption and conflicts of interest. According to the US Department of State 2011, since April 2010, judges have had to disclose their incomes, real estate assets, and other kinds of property that they and their spouses and children own. The report outlines that while this represents a step in the right direction, it is too early to assess the law's impact.

Frequency

The World Bank & IFC: Doing Business 2012:
- Enforcing a commercial contract in Russia requires a company to go through 36 procedures, taking 281 days at a cost of 13.4% of the claim.

World Economic Forum: The Global Competitiveness Report 2011-2012:
- Business executives give the independence of the judiciary from influences of members of government, citizens, or companies a score of 2.6 on a 7-point scale (1 'heavily influenced' and 7 'entirely independent').

- Business executives give the efficiency of the legal framework for private companies to settle disputes and to challenge the legality of government actions and/or regulations a score of 2.8 and 2.7 respectively on a 7-point scale (1 'extremely inefficient' and 7 'highly efficient').

Transparency International: Global Corruption Barometer 2010:
- 28% of households surveyed consider the judiciary to be 'extremely corrupt'.

- 17.7% of households who had contact with the judiciary in 2009 report having paid a bribe.

- Citizens give the judiciary a score of 3.7 on a 5-point scale (1 'not at all corrupt' and 5 'extremely corrupt').

The World Bank & IFC: Enterprise Surveys 2009:
- Approximately 29% of companies surveyed believe that the court system is fair, impartial and uncorrupted.

EBRD & World Bank: BEEPS Russia 2008:
- 3% of companies surveyed state that bribery is frequent in dealing with courts.

- 44% of the companies surveyed report that the functioning of the judiciary poses a problem for doing business.