The plenum was attended by Pridnestrovie's president, Yevgeny Shevchuk, the prime minister, Tatyana Turanskaya, Supreme Council deputies, heads of Supreme and Constitution Courts, heads of executive authorities.
The chair of the Arbitration Court, Maria Melnik, noted in her report that in the past eight months the number of cases receivable considerably increased as compared to the same period in 2014. If in January-August 2014 there were 663 cases, this year we already have 1013 cases. This is due to the changes in legislation: some categories of administrative cases are now within the jurisdiction of the Arbitration Court. Therefore, a judge has to treat an average of 19 cases a month. However, as Maria Melnik underscored, there are judges with 50 cases under consideration, and one judge has even 62 cases.
Maria Melnik noted that the increased number of cases has not affected the quality of consideration. This is proved by a rather low percentage of the reversal of judgements issued by the Arbitration Court in first instance. The court has considered 123 cases in cassation proceedings. Lower courts' decisions on 86 of them have been left to stand.
Returning to the topic of administrative cases, Maria Melnik noted that there occur situations when administrative cases are brought against a legal entity and its management on the same infraction. The former are heard in the Arbitration Court, and the latter in regular courts. Therefore, it is not infrequent that courts may issue opposite judgements on the same infraction. In this regard the head of the Arbitration Court has requested the president to assist in bringing such cases to a common jurisdiction.
In her turn, the deputy chair of the court, Yelena Luka, said that the current legislation protects first of all debtors rather than creditors. At present the Arbitration Court is considering actions of debt at an amount of over 573 million roubles. Yevgeny Shevchuk noted this amount is comparable to the state's arrears of wages and pensions to employees. It is recalled that since March 2015 only 70% of wages and pensions are paid to public sector workers. The rest 30% is the debt of the state.
Yevgeny Shevchuk recalled the audience that the Arbitration Court had been considering an action of debt against an enterprise that owed over 5 million roubles to the budget. The debtor had applied for a one-year adjournment, and its application had been upheld in compliance with the law.
«In the 'democratic states' some are trying to compete with, tax crimes are severely punished — up to 20−25 years of imprisonment. We can give no more than three years. And even then we have to work hard to prove guilt," said the president in this regard. He added that now the KGB and the Interior Ministry have got interested in several cases, which are under consideration in the Arbitration Court, and are investigating into business activities of some legal entities.
Referring to the increased number of cases considered in the Arbitration Court, the president remarked that legislators and law authors should be guided by the existing reality rather than the desire to complete the process of the harmonisation of Pridnestrovie's legislation with Russia's.
Summing up all mentioned above, Yevgeny Shevchuk instructed the government to establish a coordination council to elaborate changes and amendments to the present legislation.
