PART 4 A YEAR AFTER: MAIN VIOLATIONS OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN CRIMEA of this law. The necessary condition for the administration of justice was the ob- taining of the RF citizenship, the handover of Ukrainian passport to the Russian authorities, and R ling the application on refusal from Ukrainian citizenship to the Russian authorities. The term of administration of justice by the ‘citizens substituting the positions of judges’ was determined as ‘until the establishment of the RF courts on the respective territory’. This period during which the justice in Crimea and Sev- astopol was carried out by ‘judges’ with this status, lasted from April 1, 2014 33 to December 26, 2014 . Taking into account the reporting periods in courts, the established federal courts and a number of designated federal judges com- menced the work in 2015. On December 19, 2014, based on the Decree No.786 of the President of the Rus- sian Federation ‘On appointment of judges of the federal courts’, the Deputy Chair- men of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Crimea and Sevastopol City Court, the Chairmen of the 4 district courts, Deputy Chairmen of 18 district courts and 2 garrison military courts as well as several hundred Crimean judges were appointed for a period of 6 years. Despite the fact that under the law the ‘citizens who substituted the positions of judges’ were guaranteed with the priority right to take the positions of judges in the courts of the RF, established in Crimes, the procedure of the federal courts formation did not provide any guarantees and on the contrary boosted the com- petition with the judges from the Russian Federation. Based on the analysis of the composition of courts as of March 18, 2014 and after the adoption of the given Decree, not all the judges that held positions until March 18 and passed the com- petitive selection were appointed to the positions of judges in Crimea. Thus, according to an interview with M. Timoshin34, the chairman of the Higher Judges’ Qualifications Board of the RF, 462 judges were planned for appoint- ment in Crimea and Sevastopol. According to the results of the first stage of the selection, the vacancies of judges were filled by 70%, ‘the citizens who sub- stituted the positions of judges’ during the transition period compose a little above the half of this number (~ 56%). In the interview, M. Timoshin also noted that “much attention has been paid to the analysis of professional relationships and constant, especially kinship relationships with other people in order to identify the potential conflict of interests ...”. The experience has shown that is 33 Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the RF of 23.12. 2014 N 21 ‘On the day of commencement of operation of the federal courts in the territories of the Republic of Crimea and the city of federal signiR cance Sevastopol’ http://www.rg.ru/2014/12/25/plenum-vs-dok.html 34 http://www.russia-today.ru/article.php?i=1199 126