Price of Mistake. FCA RF, 16 May 2018

Talk-show "Philosophy of Mistakes" was held in the course of the Vlll Petersburg International Legal Forum (PILF). In particular, its participants discussed problems connected with mistakes made by physicians, interpreters, judges, advocates, and their consequences.

Adviser to the President of the RF Pavel Palazhchenko, president of the JSC "Endosurgery and Lithotripsy Center" Alexander Bronshtein, scientific head of the Legal Faculty of the SRU "The Higher School of Economics" Anton Ivanov, vice-president of the Moscow Chamber of Advocates Vadim Klyuvgant and chairman of the boarder of directors of the JSC "Ilim Group" Zakhar Smushkin acted as speakers. President of the Federal Chamber of Advocates of the RF Yury Pilipenko also participated in the discussion. State-secretary, deputy of the president of the FCA RF Konstantin Dobrynin and Russian journalist, director of the "AIDS. Center" Fund Anton Kuznetsov-Krasovsky were moderators.

At first Konstantin Dobrynin asked how to admit mistakes. In his opinion mistake was a satellite of norm and it was impossible to create the latter till the one was not broken.

In his turn Anton Krasovsky pointed out that each mistake that caused fatal consequences was, on the one side, a chargeable offense and, on the other side, was followed by a chain of actions in order to prevent it.

Yury Pilipenko explained that in the 1990s a lot of taxmen  had been making mistakes and because of that tax lawyers appeared. Answering the question about how to judge physicians the president of the FCA RF said that it was a difficult profession and they didn't have to be judged as pickpockets but at the same time enjoy the feeling of safety.

As an example Alexander Bronshtein mentioned the case of Yelena Misjurina and pointed out that despite her work experience she had got into prison. He said that there was a notion of the "surgery accident" when a person happened to die at the doctor. Anton Kuznetsov-Krasovsky was interested whether it was possible to determine a mistake exactly. The president of the JSC "Endosurgery and Lithotripsy Center" replied that examination had to be carried out by qualified people.

Vadim Klyuvgant underlined that the simplest meaning of a mistake is deviation from a rule. He pointed out that "surgery accident" had a legal name of an honest mistake. Besides, the vice-president of the Moscow CA also said that in making a decision on deprivation of the advocate's status position of defense chosen by an advocate had never been taken into consideration, and it was only the issue of their conscientiousness. "It [position] should be presumed and overcome conclusively. Super competent specialists are required for that. Then we will be able to tell a mistake from unconscientiousness", - concluded Vadim Klyuvgant.

Anton Ivanov supposed that medical mistakes had to be dealt with by specialists in the criminal law. Along with that the scientific head of the SRU "HSE" Law Faculty proposed to consider mistakes made by the law courts, because they were supposed to be the permanent subject of correction.The speaker explained that people were not ready to admit their own mistakes, hence they had to go through a lot of instances. This point of view was supported by the other talk-show participants.

Yury Pilipenko paid the audience's attention to the lawyers' mistakes. "Despite belonging to the creative profession lawyers often make mistakes. Is it a disciplinary responsibility or a criminal one? Or maybe remorse?" - asked the FCA RF president.

Responsibility of an interpreter was also mentioned during the discussion. So, Pavel Palazhchenko explained that their responsibility was the same as elsewhere. He specified that interpretation depended on probabilistic forecasting and if the prognosis for the aim and logic of the saying was wrong,  there would be a mistake. He added that irreparable mistakes happened during televised press-conferences because after that they got  into the world mass media.

Experts also mentioned lack of public support for the opinion that decision about the accused had to be passed by the jury. Pavel Palazhchenko pointed out that there had been no relevant propaganda when the institution of jury had been introduced. So Vadim Klyuvgant wondered who had to be better than the society. Zakhar Smushkin considered that trying to follow public opinion was worst of all, because that notion was universal.