Law analogy to unify procedural legislation

The process of reforming modern Russian procedural legislation is connected, among other things, with the ideas of unification of the norms of administrative, arbitration and civil proceedings. At the legislative level, the tangible result of these reforms, in the form of the adoption of a single procedural law, has not been achieved. Despite the absence of fundamental procedural differences in the procedure for consideration of civil and administrative cases by arbitration courts and courts of general jurisdiction, many norms of the current procedural codes regulating similar institutions are distinctive. At the same time, the provisions of these normative acts allow courts, in the absence of the necessary procedural norm, to apply a norm regulating similar relations (analogy of the law). Analysis of the explanations of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation on issues of procedural law has shown that the possibility of applying the analogy of the law is indicated by the highest court quite often. 

The purpose of this article is to determine in which cases arbitration courts and courts of general jurisdiction apply the rules of procedural law by analogy; the provisions of which regulations are sources of analogy of the law; to find out whether the analogy of the law can be a way to unify procedural legislation in the absence of relevant provisions at the legislative level. 

The results of the study showed that the application of the analogy of the law by the courts is carried out, as a rule, based on a direct indication of such a possibility in acts of official interpretation. The use of the analogy of the procedural law in most cases is associated with the mutual use of the norms of legislation on administrative, arbitration and civil proceedings. The application of the law by analogy may be one of the tools for the unification of the current procedural legislation of the Russian Federation in the absence of a single procedural law.

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