The president’s Jan. 16 Decree on improving the efficiency of activities of the courts has outlined measures to enhance of the independence of judiciary and ensure the immunity of judges.
Among them - the development of effective mechanisms to prevent cases of contempt of court, to achieve this goal - strengthening the measures of administrative liability and establishment of criminal liability.
In addition, it is planned to strengthen penalties for interference in the resolution of court cases and non-execution of judicial acts.
The document also instructed to introduce mandatory informing through the media of the public on outcome of each criminal case regarding interference in the administration of justice.
The Decree provides that carrying out operational-search measures that restrict the rights of judges to the inviolability of home, secrecy of correspondence, telephone and other conversations, mail and courier shipments, as well as those aimed at obtaining information about connections between subscribers, is possible only on the basis of the sanction of the Prosecutor General.
It also instructed to introduce the practice of consideration by judiciary authorities of requests of individuals and legal entities of a non-procedural nature regarding the provision of legal clarifications.
