Originally from Arbitration Law and Practice in Central and Eastern Europe

1. GENERAL LEGAL FRAMEWORK

1.1 National law

a) Current status
What is the current status? When was it enacted? Have there already been amendments?

General points on arbitration in the Russian Federation

By way of introduction, it is important to note that Article 118 of the Russian Constitution ratified on 12 December 1993 proclaims as follows:

(i) Justice in the Russian Federation shall be administered only by the courts of law;

(ii) the power of the judiciary shall be exercised exclusively within the framework of predetermined constitutional, civil, administrative and criminal procedures; and, finally,

(iii) the judicial system of the Russian Federation shall be established by the Constitution of the Russian Federation and the federal constitutional law, with the creation of specialist courts being prohibited.1

With this in mind, it is not surprising that the so-called Law on the Judicial System of the Russian Federation ratified on 31 December 19962 does not make any mention of arbitration courts or arbitral tribunals when setting out the parameters of the judicial system. This lacuna in the wording of that Law clearly reflects the subordinate nature of arbitration courts and arbitral tribunals to the ordinary State courts within the Russian legal system.