Everyone is able now to familiarize himself with judicial acts. Documents will be published now in an open access on all official sites of the Russian courts: texts of court decisions will appear after their announcement, and texts of sentences will be published after they enter into force. These are the requirements of the Federal Law "About affording access to information about activity of courts of the Russian Federation", which came into effect on July 1 and is aimed to stimulate judges to more efficient self-testing and block the way to corruption in the ranks of the judiciary. However, this dialogue with the population does not commit judges to take into account the public opinion when pronouncing a sentence: their only advisor in this case is law. Sites will also provide full information about working hours and procedure of work of courts, advancement of cases and applications including data about time and place of the hearings.
       Courts had enough time to get prepared for introduction of the new law into practice, as it was approved by the State Duma and the Federation Council even in December of 2008. Long debates concerned only the necessity to make personal records of trial participants public. Eventually, personal identification was given the green light. Thus, names and surnames of all trail participants, except for names of witnesses, will be specified in full in texts of court decisions and sentences, while only initials used to be indicated before. However, passport data of trial participants, their addresses, telephone numbers and so on will remain close to public.
       For the reasons of the state security and observance of ethic norms, the Internet users will still have no access to information on several categories of cases. It is cases containing national security information and official secrets, those concerning sexual immunity of a person and affecting the interests of minors.
       The Supreme Court of Bashkortostan Republic has been publishing court decisions since May 1, 2010 already. This information is available on the official site of the Court in "Judicial acts" section.
       "Ensuring openness and transparency of court decisions, realization of the principle of publicity of legal procedures are the first priority of the court system," Elena Makushina, the press secretary of the RB Supreme Court, emphasized.
       The site of the RB Supreme Court has been functioning since 2005. Now it provides comprehensive information about the organizational structure of the Court, enactments regulating its activity, rules of conduct in the Court building, lists of scheduled hearings, court decisions on all addressed cases, reference information. There is also the "Questions of citizens" section, which informs people about the activity of the Supreme Court on-line.
       An access to court information is also realized with the help of information terminals. There are reference and information booths in the building of the Court providing information about composition of the Court, schedule of its work, location of regional courts, details for paying the state duty.
       Courtrooms are equipped with plasma displays giving information about the cases addressed at the moment and rules of conduct in the Court.
       Videoconferencing has also proved to be very effective.
       "Videoconferencing provides distant participation of convicts in trials, which considerably minimizes the costs connected with their transportation to courtrooms, promotes safety of trial participants and efficiency of legal proceedings," Elena Makushina explained. "This system is also used for organization of conferences with judges on most topical problems of law enforcement. Courts of several regions of the Russian Federation participate on-line in such conferences."