On June 11, the State Duma adopted, and on June 23, the Council of Federation approved amendments to the federal law on the procedure for reviewing citizens’ applications.

The amendments are aimed to shorten terms for citizens’ applications asking government bodies to cancel court decisions. Such an application is legally incorrect, and its review procedure is now shortened in order not to deprive a citizen of his/her right to justice due to the applicant’s lack of legal knowledge.

Practice shows that many citizens apply to the President or to other government bodies asking to cancel a court decision, and are then waiting up to 30 days for a reply that will say: modification or cancellation of court decisions is outside competence of the government body. Therefore, applicants miss law-defined terms for appealing questionable court decisions by means of judicial procedure.

New amendments, coming into force since July 12, 2010, are waited to improve the state of affairs.