MOSCOW, February 06, 2008 Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) presents information on how well Russians are informed of the work of the courts, what their information sources are and what exactly they would like to know about their working activity.

Three thirds of Russians (75%) are to some extent informed of where the court that their district belongs to is located. This includes 44% who definitely know where the court is and 31% who could approximately allocate their district court and would find it if they needed to. Residents of small towns and villages are significantly better informed of the issue. Residents of small towns and villages are the ones best informed of the issue; no less than half of them (59% and 50% respectively) know the exact location of their district court. Cf.: about one third of people living in middle-size and big cities do (38% and 33%), among Muscovites and residents of St. Petersburg only a quarter of respondents (23%) have an idea of where their district court is.
16% of respondents consider themselves to be fully or well informed. Every second respondent (52%) identifies that he/she knows little or hardly know anything at all about the work of this institution. Every third respondents is not informed of it at all (30%). The lowest level of awareness was noted among residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg (39% do not really know anything on the issue), the index is a little higher in big and middle-size cities (32-34%) and still higher in small towns and villages (26-27% of respondents here do not know anything about the work of courts).
The main source of information as far as the work of courts is concerned is central television, as 42% of respondents identify. Other sources mentioned are communicating with friends, relatives, acquaintances (26%); local television (23%), local media (19%). The smallest group of respondents (9-10% for each option) turn to the national press in their search of information on the work of courts or make use of the grapevine or the Internet (2% to 4%). 9% speak of having personal experience of applying to court as the main information source on its work, whereas 5% of respondents had to deal with the judicial system due to an exigency of business or profession. Residents of Moscow and St. Petersburg utilize interpersonal communication (16% and 23-29%), local TV (10% and 20-28%) and local press (7% and 14-25%) more rarely when in search for information regarding the work of courts. However, they use the Internet to gain knowledge on the topic more often than residents of other cities, towns or villages do (8% and 1-4%).
The most important information on the activity of courts is of instrumental character and refers to how to better defend one's interests in court (54%), in what cases one should apply to court (39%), and also the order of actions when applying to court (33%). The so-called organizational information as to where the court is, the office hours that the court and the secretary of court has, the judges’ biography, etc. seem to be less important to respondents.

The initiative all-Russia opinion poll was conducted by VCIOM on November 3-4, 2007. 1600 respondents were interviewed in 153 population areas of 46 regions of Russia. The statistical error does not exceed 3.4%