The secret of the judicial meeting: theoretical and legal deconstruction

Relevance. The lack of a unified theoretical and legal concept of secrecy makes it difficult to form a consistent legislative regulation and contributes to the fragmentation of judicial practice, which directly negatively affects the legal regulation of sectoral types of secrets, including the secrets of judicial meetings.

The purpose of this study is to conceptually substantiate the modernization of the general theoretical institute of secrecy through the creation of a theoretical and legal model of judicial secrecy and the disclosure of its specifics as a separate type.

Objectives. The research involves solving the following interrelated tasks within the framework of the general theory of law: identifying systemic gaps in the doctrinal understanding of the category of «secrecy» by defining the legal nature and specifics of the institute of «judicial secrecy» based on historical, legal and comparative analysis; substantiating the directions of adaptation of this institute to modern challenges associated with the processes of digitalization.

Methodology. The use of historical, legal, systemic and comparative legal methods, as well as the method of critical analysis of doctrine, allowed us to establish a number of significant provisions in the context of the general theory of law: systemic factors preventing the formation of a unified doctrinal concept of «secrecy» have been identified; it has been revealed that the secrecy of judicial meetings as one of the isolated types of secrets contains significant doctrinal contradictions.

Results. Substantiate the need for legislative consolidation of a differentiated approach to the regulation of this institution, including the secrecy of judicial meetings. This kind of modernization will allow achieving an optimal balance between traditional guarantees of judicial independence and current requirements for judicial transparency, which corresponds to current trends.

Conclusions. The analysis of modern legal dynamics has shown the formation of a stable trend towards the transformation of the traditional model of absolute confidentiality towards the introduction of special mechanisms for documenting potential external influences. The results obtained substantiate the need to develop a differentiated legal regime for «judicial conference secrecy» as a separate type of secrecy, taking into account procedural specifics. The conducted research indicates the need for a theoretical revision of the institute of secrecy in Russian legal doctrine through an in-depth study of its sectoral modifications.

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