Representative Actions in Russia

Abstract

Class action is an important safeguard to protect the rights and legitimate interests of large groups of people and it has already proven successful in advanced foreign legal systems. One of the most popular forms of class action in countries with acontinental legal system (France, Sweden, Argentina) is a representative action, which is initiated by non-profit associations, i.e., “ideological claimants” (associations, foundations, non-profit organizations) in defense of violated collective rights of a large group of people or unspecified persons in the most vulnerable areas of economic life. The institution of collective redress by representative bodies is less popular in countries with common law legal systems (the USA, Australia, Canada), which traditionally use class actions. Nevertheless, countries with common law legal systems such as the United Kingdom (England and Wales) actively use the legal tools for the social protection of the violated rights and interests of citizens. This article analyzes the legislative consolidation and application of representative actions in the Russian Federation. The absence of amechanism (for filing alawsuit before the decision) of judicial protection of professional representatives’ collective rights and public interests according to the generally accepted international practices involving interested persons whose rights have been violated (opt-in or opt-out), creates barriers to the development of representative actions in Russia. At the same time, the scope of these claims and the judicial protection of collective rights and public interests by public associations has its own characteristics, which can be used by legislators to effectively protect human rights.