Violation of the Court Session Regime as a Basis for Cancellation of a Judicial Act in a Civil Procedure

The article proves that the violation of the principle of publicity in the civil process, expressed in the election of an erroneous form of holding a court session (open or closed) should be attributed to the number of grounds for the cancellation of judicial acts entailing the unconditional cancellation of the decision, regardless of the correctness of such a decision on the merits. The author considers violations of a twofold nature: the court considered in a closed court session the case to be considered in an open court session; the court considered in open court the case to be considered in closed court. Violations of both the first and second kind may infringe on the principle of publicity, and may indicate a fundamental violation of the right to judicial protection. In such cases, the question of causality, namely, whether the violation could have affected the correctness of the decision on the merits of the dispute, recedes into the background. Such a causal relationship can be established, but this is not a prerequisite for the cancellation of the decision. A different understanding would turn the principle of publicity into a declarative principle. The article considers a situation in which this violation was of a partial nature, i.e. part of the meetings took place in the proper format, and the other part — in an inappropriate format.