State services update: filing claims into courts can now be done online
Background
The "Filing of electronic documents to the courts" service has been introduced on the Russian state services portal ‘Gosuslugi’. Court claims, complaints, petitions and other procedural documents can now be filed online.
Previously it was possible to file a lawsuit online via courts’ websites for the courts of general jurisdiction (‘GAS Justice’), but the system worked poorly in general: some courts actually worked with such documents, while others often ignored it. And the functionality and interface were not very convenient.
New opportunities
On ‘Gosuslugi’ portal the functionality of filing court documents via the personal account has been implemented: a step-by-step answers to the system's questions, drop-down lists, auto-filling of data, etc. And it really works: we have tested it in several of our court cases. The function of filing court documents is available through the personal account.
Documents could be submitted to the courts of general jurisdiction (except for a few regions) - for civil and administrative cases. Filing to arbitration courts should still be performed through the ‘My Arbitr’ system (and it still looks more successful). The possibility of filing to magistrate courts would be realized later on and is apparently planned.
Filing to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation is also available - for all categories of cases, including arbitration cases.
Filing can be done personally (on your own behalf) or as a representative of an individual or legal entity.
Filing can be done from any country, not only from the territory of the Russian Federation: ‘Gosuslugi’ usually works even without VPN from most of the countries.
The new service also helps to select the jurisdiction, as well as calculate the state duty to be paid and obtain a confirming receipt. Documents could be signed by hand or by electronic signature, alternatively signed scan-copy could be attached.
Note that the personal account on the state platform should be of ‘verified’ status, otherwise filing would not be allowed.
The tricky thing is that the procedural provisions for electronic filing has not yet been updated. The regulation on electronic filing was approved by the Judicial Department of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation back in 2016 and has been lastly changed in 2019. The mentioned regulation does not contain updates on filing through ’Gosuslugi’ state platform, but would probably be introduced later on to reflect the current changes.
MAGENTA Legal lawyers provide litigation services in Russian state commercial (arbitrazh) courts and courts of general jurisdiction in commercial disputes and disputes with state authorities. Managing Partner Anton Shamatonov has over 15 years of experience in litigation in all court instances, including the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
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