The Supreme Court explained the procedure for filing claims in electronic form, Sergei Vodolagin quoted by Pravo.ru

Starting from January 1, 2017, statements of claim can be filled in electronic format to the federal courts of general jurisdiction. One needs to fill in a special form posted on the portal of National Automated system “Pravosudiye”. It contains such fields as date and place of birth of the person submitting the documents, his Individual Tax-payer Number, information about his registration as Individual Entrepreneur, as well as full name, Individual Tax-payer Number and PSRN (Primary State Registration Number) of the entity. If these fields are left blank, the documents will not be submitted.

Igor Shevchuk considered that all this information is excessive, and decided to challenge provisions with the Supreme Court of Russia. According to him, this procedure partially contradicts the Civil Procedure Code and the Code of Administrative Procedure, because the codes do not specify that when submitting a claim to the court it is necessary to provide Individual Tax-payer Number and PSRN (Primary State Registration Number) and other information.

Shevchuk believes that the procedure restricts the constitutional right of citizens to free access to justice.

The Supreme Court explained that the procedure does not introduce requirements for the content of a statement of claim (or appeal) - it only regulates the process of filling in the form in the personal account of the user, through which the documents are submitted at the court. Moreover, when completing the mentioned form, the statement of claim (or appeal) along with other documents is downloaded in separate files. That is why according to the Supreme Court the arguments of the administrative claimant about the contradiction of Procedure to the Civil Procedure Code and the Code of Administrative Procedure have no legal grounds. The Rules of Procedure cannot be considered as violating the right on judicial protection, since the applicant can always file paperwork documents with the court.

Therefore, the Supreme Court refused to satisfy the administrative claim for holding the Order as partially inoperative (No. AKPI17-946).

Sergey Vodolagin, Westside Law Firm partner, believes that in fact the statement raises an important question about the identification of participants in civil circulation: "Both the Civil Code and the procedural codes propose to identify citizens by name and place of residence, and legal entities by name and location. Generally, there might be situations, when two or more entities are registered in one business center (one address) with the same name. For their accurate identification, Individual Tax-payer Number and PSRN (Primary State Registration Number) are needed. However, the Civil Code, the Civil Procedure Code and the Code of Administrative Procedure do not require these numbers to be necessarily indicated in the statements of claim. I believe that it is long overdue to oblige claimants and all participants of civil litigation to fully identify citizens and entities, when submitting documents in order to avoid confusion." Vodolagin said.