“A Procedural Untouchable?”: the case on the possibility of challenging a court President’s inaction in administrative court proceedings

Judicial independence is a foundational constitutional guarantee. Its purpose, however, is not to place every aspect of court activity beyond legal control, but to protect judges in the adjudication of particular cases. Outside the adjudicative function, a court continues to operate as a public institution, and the president of a court acts as a public official exercising administrative and managerial authority. This distinction makes the scope of judicial review over the president’s administrative action or inaction a matter of constitutional significance. This article examines the constitutionality of an approach that excludes from judicial review the actions and inaction of a court president taken outside the adjudication of a particular case and related to the administration of the court. The analysis of Russian judicial practice shows that courts of general jurisdiction treat the president of a court, even when acting not as a judge deciding a case but as an official managing the work of the court, as falling outside the category of public actors whose decisions, actions, or inaction may be challenged under Chapter 22 of the Russian Code of Administrative Court Proceedings. As a result, a citizen who petitions the president of a court on matters concerning court administration retains only a formal right to petition, while being denied judicial protection against the official’s failure to provide a substantive response. The article argues that this interpretation of the Code of Administrative Court Proceedings fails to account for the dual legal status of the court president. It improperly extends the constitutional guarantees of judicial independence to the sphere of court administration, creates legal uncertainty, and confers an unjustified privilege on a particular category of public officials. The article concludes that procedural law should be interpreted in constitutional terms to allow judicial review, under Chapter 22 of the Code, of administrative and managerial actions or inaction of a court president that are unrelated to the adjudication of a particular case, affect a citizen’s rights or legally protected interests, and are not subject to any other judicial procedure for review.

About the author: Aldar Chirninov – Doctor of Sciences in Law, Vice-Rector for Strategic Development and Personnel Policy, Associate Professor of the Higher School of Public Law, Pacific National University, Khabarovsk, Russia.

Citation: Chirninov A. (2026) “Protsessual'nyy nebozhitel'?”: delo o vozmozhnosti osparivaniya bezdeystviya predsedatelya suda v poryadke administrativnogo sudoproizvodstva [“A Procedural Untouchable?”: the case on the possibility of challenging a court President’s inaction in administrative court proceedings]. Sravnitel'noe konstitutsionnoe obozrenie, vol. 35, no. 2, pp. 151–163. (In Russian).

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