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Yalanzhi & PartnersCriminal defence in Russia

Appeal

Appeal: fifteen days, and the widest powers of any court after trial

The appeal court can do what no later court can — look again at the evidence, hear witnesses, admit new material and substitute its own decision. That power is real, but the window to use it is two weeks.

  • The full 15-day deadline used properly, including restoration if it has been missed
  • A written appeal built on the trial record, not on general complaints
  • Application to examine evidence and hear witnesses in the appeal court
  • New material — expert opinions, character evidence, documents unavailable at trial
  • Argument on both classification and sentence
  • Representation at the appeal hearing itself

The deadline, precisely

Article 389.4 of the Criminal Procedure Code gives 15 days to appeal, counted from the day the verdict is pronounced. For a defendant held in custody the period runs instead from the day a copy of the verdict is served on them. That distinction matters for foreign nationals: if the verdict was served late, or served without a translation your relative could read, the clock may not have started when you were told it did.

A missed deadline can be restored under Article 389.5 where it was missed for a valid reason. Late service, absence of an interpreter, and hospitalisation are all recognised grounds. The application goes to the court that gave the verdict.

The appeal itself is filed through the trial court, not directly with the appeal court. Filing it in the wrong place wastes days you do not have.

15 days from the verdict. The only stage after trial where the facts themselves can still be re-examined.

What the appeal court can do

Under Article 389.20 the appeal court may leave the verdict unchanged, amend it, quash it and terminate the case, quash it and enter a new verdict, or quash it and send the case for retrial. In sentencing terms it can reduce the term, change the regime of the correctional facility, apply Article 64 to go below the statutory minimum, or apply Article 73 to suspend the sentence.

Crucially, the appeal court reviews the case on the facts as well as the law. It can order witnesses to be re-examined and can accept evidence that was not before the trial court, provided there is a reason it was not produced earlier. No later court has this power.

What a good appeal looks like

Appeals fail for predictable reasons. The most common is that they restate the defence case from trial and ask the appeal court to prefer it. Appeal courts do not re-run trials on request; they respond to identified defects.

An appeal that works points to specific things: a finding in the verdict that no evidence in the file supports, a contradiction between the reasoning and the operative part, evidence admitted despite a procedural breach, an element of the offence that was assumed rather than proved, a mitigating factor listed in Article 61 of the Criminal Code that the court did not address, or a sentence that departs from the guidance of the Plenum of the Supreme Court without explanation.

Building that requires the trial record and the case file, which is why the first thing we do on an appeal instruction is obtain and read them rather than start drafting.

If the trial lawyer was the problem

It is not unusual for a family to come to us after a trial where the defence did very little — no motions filed, no expert challenged, no mitigation put forward. That is uncomfortable to say about a colleague, but it happens, and it is relevant on appeal: a defence that was formally present but substantively absent is itself a ground of challenge.

We will tell you honestly whether that argument is available in your case or whether it would weaken an otherwise good appeal.

Frequently asked

Does filing an appeal delay the sentence being served?

The verdict does not enter into force until the appeal is decided, so a custodial sentence is not yet being formally served — but a defendant already in a detention centre stays there. It is not a release mechanism.

Can the defendant attend the appeal hearing?

Yes. A defendant in custody has the right to participate, in person or by video link, and must be given the chance to state their position. Video link is now the norm.

Can we file the appeal ourselves and instruct a lawyer later?

You can, and if the deadline is about to expire you should — a short preliminary appeal preserves the right, and detailed grounds can be filed afterwards. Tell us immediately if you have done this, because supplementary grounds have their own timing rules.

What does an appeal cost?

It depends on the volume of the case file and the number of episodes, and we quote it after reading the verdict, not before. Payment arrangements are discussed at the first consultation.

See also

Related services

Challenging a verdict

A conviction is not the end of the case. There are four further stages, and each has its own rules and its own deadline.

Appeal: 15 days from the verdict. Continuous cassation: 6 months from the verdict entering into force. Both deadlines are strict.

Cassation

After the verdict enters into force. Not a rehearing — a search for breaches of law serious enough to have changed the outcome.

Six months from the verdict entering into force for continuous cassation. After that, only the discretionary route remains.

Supreme Court

The final judicial instance. Reached after the regional cassation court, and reached by very few cases.

No absolute deadline, but only after the regional cassation court has ruled — and the sooner the better.

Chairman of the Supreme Court

When a single judge has refused to refer a cassation complaint, the Chairman may disagree with that refusal. A narrow remedy that is frequently drafted wrongly.

No formal deadline — but this is the last ordinary step, and it needs the refusal decision to argue against.