How Different are the Models of Administrative Adjudication Across the Russian Regions? On the Example of Antitrust Cases

The Russian practice of implementing the decisions of administrative authorities, including challenging them in the judicial system, provides a unique opportunity to study the impact of institutional changes on the effectiveness of legal norms. This article is aimed at describing the main features of the Russian system of contesting the decisions of administrative authorities (in this case, we consider cases of contesting indictments of an antimonopoly body); it also considers key parameters that are characteristic of Russia as a country in a transitional stage of institutional development. The analysis is based on data obtained from the Arbitration Card File of the Federal Arbitration Courts of the Russian Federation on decisions of the Russian arbitration courts of first instance with respect to contesting the decisions of the antimonopoly body on all types of charges for the period 2012-2018. For the indicated period, a sample of 14,790 decisions of arbitration courts of the first instance was formed, which covered different subjects of the Russian Federation. The considered statistics of contesting antitrust decisions of arbitration courts of the first instance demonstrate a high level of differentiation of the institution of judicial regulation regarding disputes arising from the relationship between the antimonopoly body and companies. Subsequently, such features become some of the essential parameters that determine the differences in the processes of law enforcement and the quality of the institutional environment. At the same time, significant differences in the levels of judges' workload relative to average values make it possible to determine both the insufficient and excessive composition of judges, both in general for the courts of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation, and for groups of judges considering disputes arising from administrative legal relations.