The judiciary and the executive
Reviewing the judicial systems of the UK and Russia is of utmost significance in seeing their role in limiting the government’s power and holding themwithin the bounds of law. The Supreme Court is the highest court of appeal in the UK. It was established in 2009, assuming the judicial functions of the House of Lords. The Supreme Court of the UK hears around a third of the cases that it is asked to hear, 8 which is quite a high proportion considering that it is the highest court of appeal in the country. The most significant characteristic of the UK Supreme Court is that it is completely independent from the government and Parliament. Its independence stems from a set of different features of the UK justice system. When there is a vacancy and a judge needs to be appointed, an independent selection commission is formed, consisting of the President of the Supreme Court, a senior UK judge and a member of the Judicial Appointments Commission of each, England andWales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. They select a candidate and recommend them to the Secretary of State for Justice, who then, if approved, recommends them to the Prime Minister who finally recommends them to the Queen for appointment. Since candidates are selected by an independent selection commission, it is almost impossible for the Prime Minister or government to appoint someone who they can influence, thus giving the justices independence. 9 Supreme Court justices are required to retire by the age of 70, and they can only be removed if both Houses of Parliament vote on it, thus the process of removal is very complicated, which means that justices do not have to worry about making unpopular decisions which go against the government. Furthermore, the salaries of justices are guaranteed to them by an independent Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB), 10 making it even harder for the government to influence the judges. Therefore, it is very clear that the UK Supreme Court is essentially free from all influence of the government, and it is free to act as and is seen as ‘ the ultimate check and balance on the UK’s laws and constitution ’ and government. This is especially highlighted by arguably the most famous case the Supreme Court has heard, the aforementioned case on the prorogation of Parliament, where the justices ruled against the government. Like the Supreme Court in the UK, the Constitutional Court is the highest in Russia. Unlike its UK counterpart, the Constitutional Court of Russia is highly selective on the cases they hear. According to the Venice Commission twenty thousand petitions are made by citizens to the court every year, but ‘ about ninety percent of them were declined by the Secretariat of the Constitutional Court because they were found to be non-compliant with the requirement of the Law on the Constitutional Court (LCC) ’ . Petitions hear one of two types of decisions after judicial review, ‘ rulings or decisions on the merits ’ or ‘ decision to dismiss ’ . But the number of petitions that hear a decision at all is very small, ‘ for instance, in 2012, the Court issued only 34 rulings of the 18,745 petitions received, meaning that 99.9%of the petitions were dismissed by judges or found non-compliant and filtered out by the Secretariat ’ . 11 These figures show that any petition against the government made by a citizen is very unlikely to be heard by the judges, which contrasts with the prorogation case in the UK, where a citizen brought the government to justice in the Supreme Court. Furthermore, the judiciary’s independence is also regularly questioned. In the aforementioned case of Russian constitutional changes of 2020, ‘The Court’s decision was not unexpected: 11 of its 15 judges are Putin appointees, including current Chief Judge. ’ 12 Since the selection of judges largely depends on the President, the head of the government, it would be very unlikely if the Russian Constitutional Court 8 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-49663001. 9 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_the_United_Kingdom. 10 https://www.judiciary.uk/about-the-judiciary/judges-career-paths/terms-of-service/salary/. 11 https://www.venice.coe.int/cocentre/Aryna_Dzmitryeva_Case_Selection_in_the_Russian_Constitutional_Cou rt.pdf. 12 https://meduza.io/en/feature/2020/03/17/52-pages-for-12-more-years.
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