Full Breakdown
Russia Plans Jury Reform That Could Shift Verdict Power to Judges
By Drooid · · How we work
Proposed Jury Reform
The Supreme Court is drafting legislation that would let the presiding judge enter the jury deliberation room and “clarify” questions that arise, though the judge would not vote on guilt. The reform also reduces jury panels from six or eight members to four, permits citizens over 65 to serve, narrows the grounds for dissolving an already formed panel, and gives defendants the right to refuse a jury trial even after a hearing has been scheduled. The draft law has not yet been published.
Current Jury Practice and Statistics
Jury trials remain rare in Russia, accounting for roughly 0.1 % of criminal cases in 2025—643 of more than 640,000 cases. In the first half of 2025, 144 of 444 defendants in jury trials were acquitted, a rate close to one in three, whereas the overall acquittal rate across the criminal justice system stays below 0.5 %. Appeals overturn jury acquittals at a high frequency, with figures ranging from 65 % to over 80 % in different years, according to the Supreme Court.
Official Justifications
Deputy Chair of the Supreme Court Nikolai Timoshin and judge Sergei Zelenin presented the reform as a move toward a model that better fits Russia’s continental legal tradition. Zelenin argued that the current jury system draws heavily from Anglo-American practice and that closer interaction between judge and jury would make proceedings more stable. Supporters cite the high overturn-on-appeal rate as evidence that tighter judicial oversight is needed, and they compare the proposal to the European lay-judge system where professional judges sit alongside lay members as a single panel.
Legal and Expert Opposition
Lawyers contend that allowing a judge into deliberations undermines the independence of jurors. Reducing panels to four also raises concerns about the weight of public participation in verdicts. A source cited by *Current Time* described the reform as formalizing practices already occurring informally, noting that judges on the ground resist the existing courts and that jurors have frequently exposed weak prosecution cases. The Constitutional Court has previously emphasized the secrecy of deliberations and juror independence as fundamental safeguards of a fair trial.
Anticipated Consequences
If enacted, the changes could concentrate decision-making authority in state-appointed officials, potentially lowering the already low acquittal rate for jury trials and diminishing the role of lay participation. Given the historical rarity of juries—introduced after the 1864 reforms of Tsar Alexander II, abolished during the Soviet era, and restored in the early 1990s—the reform marks a significant shift in Russia’s criminal justice landscape.