The Managing Partner of Alliance Legal Consulting Group participated in a round table discussion hosted by the CPRF faction at the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to discuss current issues in the professionalization of court representation and the Ministry of Justice’s proposed bill on the “advocates’ monopoly.”

Notably, the bill failed to pass the regulatory impact assessment. As a result, the lack of a comprehensive analysis of its socio-economic consequences makes it impossible to objectively assess the balance between the proposed benefits and potential risks for citizens and business entities.

Evgeny Karnoukhov finds the contradictory and inconsistent behavior of the bill’s author—the Ministry of Justice—particularly surprising. After all, back in 2017, it was this very department that legally established a roadmap for professionalizing court representation in its own “Concept for the Regulation of the Professional Legal Services Market,” dated October 24, 2017. This is a well-developed and thorough document that, unfortunately, was never implemented and was, so to speak, “shelved.” This raises the question: why were the provisions of this “Concept” not taken into account—or rather, completely ignored—when drafting the proposed bill?

Following the discussion, the round table participants found it necessary to recommend that the Government and the Ministry of Justice consider the review of the draft federal law “On Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation” by the State Duma to be premature until a comprehensive, scientifically-grounded expert review and a broad, transparent public discussion involving all stakeholders have been conducted.