In 2022, Russian courts set a record for the number of criminal cases that were considered behind closed doors, without listeners and media representatives. This is evidenced by the data of judicial statistics studied by Mediazona.
During the year, judges ruled 25,587 times to hear cases behind closed doors (in total, the courts considered 733,383 criminal cases). The number of cases closed to the public has doubled since 2018, when there were 13,172 such rulings.
A trial open to all comers is guaranteed by the Constitution. The law lists only a few categories of cases that can be considered without listeners: cases in which there is a state secret, cases against defendants under the age of 16, and cases of sexual offenses.
The number of convicts under the age of 16 is steadily declining and in 2022 it was 4,101 people. The number of people convicted of sexual offenses has also not shown significant growth in recent years, in 2022 there were 7,603 people. In cases of treason, espionage and disclosure of state secrets, 100 people were convicted in a year. This is less than half of all considered non-public cases for the year.
The law also allows the judge to close the session to «ensure the safety of the participants in the trial» and their loved ones. It is this formulation that is often used to eliminate the public from high-profile cases.
For example, on April 26, 2023, the judge of the Basmanny District Court of Moscow, Yevgenia Nikolaeva, asked everyone to vacate the hall when the issue of limiting the time limit for familiarizing politician Alexei Navalny with the materials of his criminal case was being decided. The reason for this was the request of the investigator Roman Vidyukov, who said that a public hearing could «disclose the data of the preliminary investigation» and threaten «the safety of the participants in the trial», without specifying who does he mean. Navalny called this request a cynical mockery.