Changes in the amount of court fees and financing of arbitration courts as a prerequisite for improving the effective protection of entrepreneurs
The purpose of the article is to identify, in the interests of protecting the rights of entrepreneurs, the functioning of the institution of court duty in economic justice (its compensatory, preventive and social functions) and find ways to harmonise such functioning. The methodological basis of the article is the subject-activity research strategy. It describes the imbalance in the functioning of the court duty institution. Duty rates do not deter unjustified applications to the courts, and the courts have financial problems that can be solved with additional duty revenues and thus significantly improve the quality of economic justice by ensuring real and rapid protection of entrepreneurs' rights. It is justified to strengthen the preventive and compensatory functions and to strengthen the social function of court duty more adequately. It is proposed to conduct social and legal experiments to adjust court duty rates, and to rely on European indicators of court duty collection. It is justified to increase budget financing of courts on the basis of European average indicators of financing per inhabitant rather than as a percentage of the gross domestic product. The argument is made in favour of an increase in duty rates with a parallel increase in court funding: the authority of the court will increase as judges and participants in a case become aware that they have received funds for justice not simply from the "public trough", but from "own" ("paid", "earned") funds. Conclusions: 1. An opinion has been expressed about an increase in arbitration duty rates, as the institution of court duty currently has neither a preventive nor a compensatory function. Inadequate consolidation of the social function of the court duty institution must be eliminated. 2. The increase in the share of unjustified appeals requires more rapid counteraction: the starting duty rates must be constantly indexed to the inflation rate and the possibility of additional increases must be determined on the basis of European averages and social and legal experiments. 3. In order to strengthen the trust of entrepreneurs in courts, it is necessary to introduce European standards in the field of justice: it is advisable to bring the funding indicators for Russian courts up to the average level of funding for courts in Council of Europe member states. 4. A study of the European experience of changes in the volumes of two financial flows - revenue from court fees and court financing - makes it possible to conclude that it is justified to increase these flows substantially at the same time. As a possible option, it is proposed to increase court duty rates for legal entities and individual entrepreneurs by 20% per annum of the current rates (in the future - to double court duty fees), to increase annual current state budget financing of the court system by 10% (in the future - to double the financing).