Application of Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in Russian Courts when Recognizing Foreign Courts Decisions that do not Require further Proceedings.

Baskova Anna Valer'evna PhD in Law Associate Professor of the Department of State and Legal Disciplines of the North-Western Institute (branch) O. E. Kutafin University (MSLA) 160000, Russia, Vologda oblast, Vologda, M. Ulyanova str., 18, office 312 makara@inbox.ru

Introduction. The issues of recognition and enforcement of foreign court decisions are of direct practical importance. The authors of the textbook on civil procedure edited by Lebedev M.Yu. note that "it is important that the decision on the dispute made by the competent authority of a foreign state has legal consequences in another state for the persons against whom it was made for a number of reasons." Among such reasons , they indicate: strengthening trust between states, reducing the volume of cases under consideration, protecting the rights and interests of participants in the process" ^{[1 - 224]}. Each State independently determines "the parameters of recognition and enforcement of foreign judicial decisions, determining the categories of decisions subject to recognition and enforcement, and applying (or not applying) the procedure for issuing an exequatur" ^[2-205]. In different States, there are different procedures for bringing foreign court decisions into force. There is a fairly extensive legal literature on this. Thus, the author managed to find scientific studies of foreign authors on the recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in Slovenia, Canada, the UK, Ireland and the USA ^{[3-203],[4-441],[5-1444],[6-197]}. Interestingly, in the USA, researchers consider not just the recognition of foreign court decisions, but separately the recognition of decisions made by the judicial authorities of specific states, for example, China or France ^{[7-83],[8-817]}. There are two main procedures in Russia – recognition of foreign court decisions and enforcement of foreign court decisions. Both procedures are regulated by the Civil Procedure Code and the Arbitration Procedure Code for civil procedure and arbitration, respectively. The procedure for bringing a foreign court decision to enforcement is valid for decisions requiring the defendant to take certain actions or abstain from them, and the recognition procedure is used for decisions that do not require enforcement. However, there is an unusual article in the Civil Procedure Code that regulates "recognition of decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings." Regarding the status and meaning of this article, there are different points of view, a number of scientists believe that it refers to an independent situation of giving legal force to a decision of a foreign court ^[9-702], and others – that it implies the same procedure as for "decisions that do not require enforcement", ^{[10 - 412]}. In some sources, although the authors describe the content of Article 415 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, they do not comment on it and do not explain its similarity or difference with Article 413 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation [11 – 353.] In other sources, on the contrary, they interpret it in a rather peculiar way. So, in the textbook ed. Azarkhina A.V. formulated the following statement: "Civil procedural legislation names certain categories of decisions on recognition claims that do not require the execution of any procedural actions." The fact that we are talking about Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation becomes clear from the text following this wording. "First of all, decisions determining the legal status of a citizen of the state whose court made this decision ...", etc. all types of decisions listed in Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation ^{[12 - 120]}. The purpose of this study is to identify the features of the practical application of Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation on the recognition of decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings. Research objectives: to discover decisions or other rulings of Russian courts on the application of Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, to study these decisions, to identify the features that have developed in the application of this article in practice. There are currently no special scientific studies devoted to the study of the practice of applying Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. However, there are scientific works concerning the issues of recognition and enforcement of a foreign court decision in general: for example, scientific articles: Popov V.V. "Grounds for recognition and enforcement of foreign court decisions in Russia" ^[13-137], Marysheva N.I., Shchukin A.I. "Foreign court decision as an object of recognition and enforcement in Russia" ^{[14 - 45]}, Kostin A.A. "On the issue of recognition of foreign court decisions on economic disputes that do not require enforcement" ^[15-119], etc. The issues of recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in the absence of an international treaty are discussed in detail in science ^{[16-192],[17-709],[18-22]}, grounds for refusal to recognize and enforce foreign judgments ^{[19-4],[20-39]}, consequences of signing the Hague Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Judgments civil and Commercial Affairs 2019 ^{[21-166],[22-84],[23-170]}.

Materials and methods. Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation is called "Recognition of decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings." This article formulates the rule that decisions of foreign courts that do not require further production due to their content are recognized in the Russian Federation. The legislator also lists specific options for such decisions: a decision on the status of a citizen of the state whose court made the decision; a decision on the dissolution or invalidation of a marriage between a Russian citizen and a foreign citizen, if at the time of the case at least one of the spouses lived outside the Russian Federation; a decision on the dissolution or invalidation of a marriage between Russian citizens, if both spouses lived outside the Russian Federation at the time of consideration of the case. This list is open, since at the end of it the legislator adds the phrase "in other cases provided for by federal law".

Due to the fact that Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation itself does not provide for any additional procedure for recognizing decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings, its mention in judicial practice is quite rare. The author searched for court rulings in which Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation was used on the website "Judicial and Regulatory Acts of the Russian Federation (Sudakt)": https://sudact.ru. Only two fields were filled in the search card: the "Article of the Law" field, which contains Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, and the "Section" field, which specifies "courts of general jurisdiction". As a result of the "search" 155 documents were found. However, the majority of them turned out to be "false". The fact is that in some court decisions, Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation is mistakenly mentioned instead of Article 415 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, which deals with debt forgiveness, and accordingly, the decision also deals with debt forgiveness, and not about foreign court decisions. As a result, it was possible to identify only 4 decisions in which it was really about the recognition of foreign judicial decisions with reference to Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the PF. Let's consider these solutions further.

In the first decision, the Pyatigorsk Garrison Military Court considered the case of citizen S., who, being a serviceman, required his commander to include his parents in his service record as dependents (The decision of the Pyatigorsk Garrison Military Court in the case of April 20, 2017 in case No. 2A-51/2017 // https://sudact.ru / (accessed 25.08.2022). The fact that the parents were dependent was confirmed by the decision of the military court of the Dushanbe garrison (Republic of Tajikistan). The court recognized the decision of a foreign court as belonging to the "category of decisions that do not require compulsory execution in their content." The court also pointed out that "there is no evidence of an appeal to the court with objections to the recognition of this judicial act by the defendants." Based on these explanations: "a decision that does not require enforcement", "objections to recognition", it seems that the judge had in mind Article 413 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. But in the text of the decision, the judge refers to article 415 of the CPC, and indicates only part of the article, as if determining the specific type of decision by virtue of which the decision is recognized. "At the same time, according to Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, decisions of foreign courts regarding the status of a citizen of the state whose court made the decision are recognized in the Russian Federation that do not require further proceedings due to their content." That is, the judge refers the "decision on the recognition of being dependent" to the category of "court decisions regarding the status of a citizen of the state" and at the same time actually recognizes it as a "decision that does not require additional proceedings" under Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation. At the same time, the judge calls the same decision "a decision that does not require enforcement," that is, the decision that is mentioned not in Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, but in Article 413 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.

The second decision was made by the Uraisk City Court of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug on the claim of citizen A. (The decision of the Uraisk City Court of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug- Yugra in the case of March 21, 2017 in case No. 2-179/2017 // https://sudact.ru / (accessed 25.08.2022). Citizen A. appealed to the court with a claim to the State Institution – the Management of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation for the recognition of insurance experience for the period from 01.05.1979 to 01.05.1993 and its inclusion in his work experience. A. from 01.05.1979 to 01.05.1993 worked as a welder in the Machine and Tractor Park of the collective farm named after G. Asadov of the Fizuli district of the Republic of Azerbaijan. In 1993, the village where the plaintiff worked was seized by Armenian militants, all documents about his work were burned as a result of a fire in the office of the collective farm. The plaintiff was forced to flee Azerbaijan, and has been living in Uray, Russia since 1994. The plaintiff could not provide any other evidence confirming the length of service. However, the fact of A.'s work in this collective farm was confirmed by the decree of the Fuzuli District Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan of 2013, which entered into force. The plaintiff insisted that this decision is a resolution, "the enforcement of which is not required on the territory of the Russian Federation, international treaties, under which the execution of this decision would fall, have not been concluded between Russia and Azerbaijan." The defendant (Pension Fund Management) referred to the fact that according to paragraph 2, paragraph 1 of Article 412 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, he (Pension Fund Management) was deprived of the opportunity to participate in the process of the Fuzuli District Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the case of the recognition of the legal fact of A.'s work on the collective farm. The judge qualified the decision of the Fuzuli District Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan as "a decision of a foreign state that does not require additional execution", "since it does not establish the obligations of the parties to commit certain actions or refrain from committing them." At the same time , the judge referred to several legal acts:

·        Article 409 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation states that "decisions of foreign courts are recognized and executed in the Russian Federation if it is provided for by an international treaty";

·        Article 52 of the Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases of the CIS dated 22.01.1993 states that "decisions of foreign courts in civil, family and criminal cases are recognized and executed on the territory of the Russian Federation without special proceedings";

·        Article 50 of the Agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Azerbaijan on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases dated 22.12.1992 states that "The Contracting Parties mutually recognize and implement the decisions of the institutions of justice in civil and family cases that have entered into force";

·        Article 413 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation states that "decisions of foreign courts that do not require enforcement are recognized without any further proceedings, unless objections are received from the interested person regarding this." (there were no corresponding objections from the Pension Fund)

·        Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation states that "in the Russian Federation, decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings due to their content, including regarding the status of a citizen of the state whose court made the decision, in other cases provided for by federal law, are recognized."

As a result, the Urai City Court recognized the decision of the Fuzuli District Court of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the fact of A.'s work on the collective farm as legally valid and on the basis of this satisfied the plaintiff's claim to include the disputed period in the plaintiff's insurance record.

In the third decision, the Otradnensky City Court considered the case of citizen T., who filed a lawsuit against the Department of Social Protection of the Population in the city district of Otradny GKU SO "GUSZN" for the provision of subsidies for housing and utilities. (The decision of the Otradnensky City Court of the Samara region of August 4 , 2016 in case no . 2-1012/2016// https://sudact.ru / (accessed 25.08.2022). Citizen T. lived alone in an apartment, did not work, was retired and applied for a subsidy, but the Social Protection Department refused her. Refused on the grounds that, according to the data in the passport, she was married to NN, and the income of NN is unknown, and most likely she is not entitled to any subsidy. In court, the plaintiff referred to the fact that she had terminated the marriage with a citizen of NN, but she terminated it in a foreign court (which one, it is not clear, since the court address is encrypted in the court decision), the Social Protection Department refuses to recognize this decision, since the pensioner did not register the fact of divorce in the registry office.

The judge recognized the legal force of the foreign court 's decision on the dissolution of marriage in the Russian Federation and referred to the following norms:

·        According to Part 3 of Article 160 of the RF IC, "the dissolution of a marriage between citizens of the Russian Federation or the dissolution of a marriage between citizens of the Russian Federation and foreign citizens or stateless persons committed outside the territory of the Russian Federation in compliance with the legislation of the relevant foreign state on the competence of the bodies that made decisions on the dissolution of marriage, and subject to application in the event of dissolution marriage legislation is recognized as valid in the Russian Federation."

·        Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation states that "in the Russian Federation, decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings due to their content are recognized: on the dissolution or invalidation of a marriage between a Russian citizen and a foreign citizen, if at the time of the consideration of the case at least one of the spouses lived outside the Russian Federation."

The judge explained Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation as follows: "From the meaning of the content of the above article, it follows that the recognition of decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings means that the legal consequences of the decisions taken arise without performing any formalities." Registration of the fact of the dissolution of a marriage dissolved by a foreign court decision - this, according to the judge, would be just an additional formal procedure. Since Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation does not provide for additional formalities for the operation of such foreign decisions on the territory of the Russian Federation, therefore, this foreign court decision has legal force on the territory of Russia. The civil claim of Tokareva I.A. was satisfied.

But the Feodosiya City Court (the fourth decision) refused to satisfy the claims of citizen L., who appealed to the court with a statement on the obligation of the traffic police to register his ownership of the DAEWOO car (The decision of the Feodosiya City Court (Republic of Crimea) dated April 21, 2015 under case No.2-1338/2015 // https://sudact.ru / (accessed 25.08.2022). The car was purchased by the applicant from a citizen of NN. The citizen of NN did not remove him from the registration register. Then the citizen of NN was brought to criminal responsibility, all the property registered to him was arrested, including the DAEWOO car. The applicant applied to the traffic police with a request to register the purchased car for him, but the traffic police refused, since the car is under arrest. The applicant appealed to the Court of Ukraine, the Suvorovsky District Court of Ukraine recognized the transaction as valid and recognized the ownership of the purchased car for the applicant. The applicant submitted the said court decision to the Traffic Police of the Russian Federation for registration of ownership of the car, but the Traffic Police of the Russian Federation refused registration. The applicant appealed to the Feodosiya City Court with a demand to oblige the Traffic Police of the Russian Federation to re-register the car for him. The judge refused to satisfy the claim., referring to the following norms:

·        According to Part 5 of Article 13 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, "recognition and enforcement on the territory of the Russian Federation of decisions of foreign courts, foreign arbitration courts (arbitrations) are determined by international treaties of the Russian Federation and this Code."

·        409, 410 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation that decisions of foreign courts are recognized and enforced in the Russian Federation, if this is provided for by an international treaty, a decision of a foreign court may be submitted for enforcement within three years from the date of its entry into force.

·        Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation states that "decisions of foreign courts that do not require enforcement are recognized without any further proceedings, unless objections are received from the interested person regarding this." A strange interpretation of Article 415 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. The wording indicates that the judge does not distinguish between "decisions that do not require enforcement" and "decisions that do not require further proceedings". As a result, the judge independently "adds" the content of Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation (article about "decisions that do not require further production") to the rules for "decisions that do not require enforcement from Articles 413 and 414 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation.

·        On Article 13 of the Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases of the CIS, 1993, that "documents that are produced or certified by an institution or a specially authorized person within their competence and in the prescribed form and sealed with an official seal on the territory of one of the Contracting Parties are accepted for territories of other Contracting Parties without any special certificate". It is not very clear why the judge refers specifically to this rule. After all, the CIS Convention "On Legal Assistance ..." has a separate section on recognition and enforcement of foreign court decisions – section III "Recognition and enforcement of decisions".

·        According to paragraph 8 of the Order of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation No. 1001 of 24.11.2008 "On the procedure for registration of vehicles", that "registration of vehicles ... is carried out on the basis of documents certifying ownership of vehicles".

On the basis of all these norms, the judge concluded that since "the decision of a foreign court to recognize the applicant's property right implies enforcement, namely, registration of the right in state bodies, this decision is not recognized on the territory of the Russian Federation, there are no grounds for registration of ownership by the traffic police authorities."

Results and discussions. The analysis of the described court decisions allows us to come to the following conclusions. Judges apply in practice Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation for the recognition of foreign court decisions on the territory of the Russian Federation. As decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings, Russian judges recognized, in particular, the decision to recognize the parents as dependents of the plaintiff, the decision to recognize the fact of work in a particular place and the decision to dissolve the marriage between a Russian citizen and a foreign citizen. The decision of a foreign court to recognize the sale transaction as valid and to recognize the plaintiff's ownership of the car purchased on the basis of the sale transaction is qualified by the judge as a decision requiring enforcement. Interestingly, Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation provides for three variants of court decisions that can be recognized as decisions that do not require further proceedings, these are decisions on the status of a citizen, and two types of decisions on the dissolution of marriage. And although the list of such decisions is open, however, it implies not just "other similar cases", namely "other cases reviewed by federal law". Thus, as a similar "other case provided for by federal law", science considers the decisions implied in Article 160 of the RF IC "decisions on the dissolution of marriage between foreign citizens taken outside Russia in compliance with the legislation of the relevant foreign state" ^{[254 - 268]}.

Three decisions of foreign courts, for the recognition of which the plaintiffs (applicants) petitioned, were adopted in the CIS countries: in Ukraine, in Tajikistan, in Azerbaijan. Regarding the decision of a foreign court on the dissolution of marriage, the place and state of its adoption remained unknown (the data is encrypted). In all four cases considered, the issue of "recognition of a foreign court decision" was indirect, that is, the plaintiff (applicant) applied to the court with another claim (for example, with a claim for a grant, with a claim for a pension), and the decision of the foreign court served as a kind of proof of his claim. In all four cases, the organization acting as a defendant was against the satisfaction of the claim and against the recognition of the decision of a foreign court as valid on the territory of the Russian Federation. When recognizing decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings, the judge usually referred to Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation itself, sometimes additionally to Article 413 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, as well as to international treaties: the CIS Convention "On Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Cases" of 1993, to bilateral agreements on legal assistance assistance and legal relations with a particular state, the court of which made a controversial decision. Judges sometimes confuse the concepts of "decisions that do not require enforcement" and "decisions that do not require further proceedings", as, for example, in the first and second decisions. At the same time, the judges are not united regarding the meaning of Article 415 of the CPC, some of them believe that "decisions that do not require further proceedings" can be challenged in accordance with Article 413 of the CPC of the Russian Federation, for example, it was formulated in the first and second decisions, and the judge considering the third case, on the contrary, was sure that the objections such decisions are unacceptable.

Conclusions. Thus, the following features of the application of Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation in practice can be distinguished. As decisions that do not require further proceedings, judges recognize the decisions of foreign courts on the recognition of the parents as dependents of the plaintiff, on the recognition of periods of work in a specific place at a specific time, decisions on the dissolution of marriage. A dispute on the recognition of a foreign court decision that does not require further proceedings is not an independent dispute, but is considered within the framework of another dispute in which the said foreign decision is evidence in the case. Some judges admit the possibility of objections from interested parties to decisions of foreign courts that do not require further proceedings, according to the rules of Article 413 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, others insist on the independent meaning of Article 415 of the Civil Procedure Code of the Russian Federation and, accordingly, the inadmissibility of objections and any other formal procedures to give legal force to such decisions in the Russian Federation.