Consequences of procedural rules violation on conciliation procedures in civil proceedings (to the adoption of the Federal Law of July 26, 2019 No. 197-FZ “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation”)

The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the reform of the procedural legislation in line with expanding the possibilities of parties reconciliation at all stages of the civil and arbitration process, including through mediation, has generated a number of scientific and practical problems, one of which is the assessment of the imperativeness of the rules of procedural law on fulfillment by a court or arbitration tribunal of an obligation to facilitate parties reconciliation. The purpose of the study is to evaluate the arguments both in favor of the fact that the court’s failure to fulfill the obligation to cooperate in reconciling the parties should serve as the basis for the annulment of the judicial act, and in favor of the fact that this violation does not affect the decision correctness on the merits of the dispute. We draw conclusion that, in certain circumstances, a provisions violation on conciliation may constitute a reason for the decision annulment (for example, in cases where the court of the verification instance, in order to make up for the omissions of the court of first instance, leads the parties to reconciliation, although annulment with the termination of the proceedings in this case is objective consequence of achieving the result of conciliation procedures); in other cases, the discovery of the fact that the potential of conciliation procedures has not been used, with the revealed possibility of parties conciliation, may serve as the basis for making a special ruling to the court of first instance. But in any case, the court’s failure to reconcile the parties would constitute a violation of civil procedural law, which should not be left without any reaction from the courts of verification instances.