October 02, 2026

Learning to Nod


Learning to Nod
Blind? Public domain.

Russian state newspaper Kommersant reported that the country's Supreme Court has drawn up a framework for changing the jury trial system. “The reform aims to increase citizens’ motivation, strengthen accountability for interference in the work of trial juries, and reduce the grounds for overturning acquittals,” the article said. 

The main changes involve reducing the number of jurors from six to four, simplifying the selection process, raising the upper age limit for jurors, and curtailing their powers. For example, the enigmatic “prohibition on examining, in the presence of the jury, matters falling outside their remit." Most importantly, the framework suggests creating a joint panel comprising a judge and the jurors, which has the potential to contradict the very idea of their independence.

 “This will streamline the proceedings and reduce the time taken to hear cases,” Kommersant reported. In reality, this could mean that the role of jurors will become purely formal, as was the case with the “people’s assessors” in the USSR. These assessors were derisively referred to as “nodders” because they responded to all the judge’s proposals with silent, submissive nods. 

“Allegedly, this is done to prevent pressure being exerted on the jurors,” said lawyer Ivan Pavlov on the situation during the immigrant news program The Breakfast Show, “but the element of pressure is obvious: it is precisely the judge who will exert pressure and sway them to deliver a verdict that has already been predetermined. And this, of course, will be a guilty verdict, because the system has been working for so long – investigators, operatives, then prosecutors – and suddenly some jurors might acquit the person and undo the work of an army of officials. To ensure that doesn’t happen, the trial will be presided over by a professional judge!”

Independent legal experts are commenting on the situation as if the decision to implement the concept had already been taken, as it's unlikely not to be brought into being.

The jury system first appeared in Russia during the tsarist era; it was eliminated by the Bolsheviks and reinstated in the 1990s as one of the most important of democratic institutions. Tampering with it is symbolic of Russia's larger recent shift away from those democratic ideals.

 

 

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