MOSCOW, December 6 (RAPSI, Lyudmila Klenko) – Vyacheslav Lebedev, Chairman of Russia’s Supreme Court, summarized criminal justice trends addressing the Ninth National Congress of Judges which is held in Moscow.

Lebedev said that the number of suspects put in pre-trial detention in Russia dropped by 80 per cent in comparison with 2006,

The number of underage convicts is decreasing, according to Lebedev.

The number of individuals who were convicted and sentenced for business crimes also dropped from 8,000 in 2010 to 2,000 in 2016.

One fourth of suspects are exempted from criminal liability, Lebedev said. 

Fraud remains the most frequent crime in Russia, he added. 

The Congress was also addressed by President Putin, Chairman of Russia’s Constitutional Court Valery Zorkin, and the President of the European Court of Human Rights Guido Raimondi.

The National Congress of Judges is the supreme body of the national judiciary vested with the authority to regulate its activities. Justices of peace, district court judges, judges of the courts of the Russian Federation subjects, representatives of military and commercial courts, as well as of higher courts, among them the Supreme Court and the Constitutional Court, are eligible to be elected as delegates of Congresses of Judges. The Congresses are convened every four years by Russia’s Council of Judges. The first Congress took place in October of 1991.