Reforming the Russian Legal System

Reforming the Russian Legal System is a comprehensive analysis of the forces that are shaping legal reform in the republics of the former USSR. Looking beneath the flow of day-to-day developments, the book examines how traditional indigenous Russian legal values, and the 74-year experience with communism and ‘socialist legality’ are being combined with Western concepts of justice and due process to forge a new legal consciousness in Russia today. The author provides a broad historical survey of pre-revolutionary and Soviet-era legal developments, which provides a backdrop to the reforms initiated by Gorbachev. Chapters analysing constitutional law, criminal law and procedure, the Procuracy, and the laws governing the transition to a market economy illustrate the recurring themes of the book: the interaction of crosscurrents in Russian legal culture, and variations in the pace of legal reform from republic to republic and region to region.