MOSCOW, June 25 (RAPSI) – Russia’s courts are not to apply foreign legal standards when hearing cases complicated by foreign elements where consequences of the use thereof are incompatible with the principles of the legal order of the Russian Federation, a draft resolution of the RF Supreme Court reads on Tuesday.

Courts are not to apply provisions of foreign laws to be used according to parties’ agreement as to the choice of the governing law, conflicts-of-law rules contained in Russia’s international treaties, or Russia’s federal laws, if the consequences of the application of such a foreign regulation clearly contradict the underlying rationale of the legal order (public policy) of the Russian Federation when taking into account the nature of the relations complicated by a foreign element, the document reads.

At the same time, courts are not to apply legal norms to the detriment of the sovereignty or security of Russia, infringing on the Constitutional civil rights and liberties of Russia’s citizens and organizations even in the cases where such legal norms are to be directly applicable.

The Supreme Court of Russia has stressed that imperative norms of law are of special importance and fall under the category of directly applicable norms when their primary aim is protection of public interest relating to the fundamentals of the economic, political, or legal system of the state. Such norms are to be applicable to contentious legal relations notwithstanding the fact by which law they are to be regulated in accordance with parties’ agreements or conflict-of-law rules.

Among the directly applicable legal norms, the draft resolution points out, are the provisions of Russia’s law constraining the conveyance of certain objects of civil rights, for instance as concerns the provisions of laws permitting foreigners to purchase plots of land, stocks and shares in charter capitals of certain business entities and so on, as well as those determining the circumstances preventing foreign citizens from concluding marriages in the territory of the Russian Federation.