Join us on Thursday, October 16, 2014, for an in-depth panel on Russia's Legal Trajectories: Law in Action and Question, 1830 to 2014.
In popular imagination, Russian law is an oxymoron; commentators bemoan corruption, criminality and lawlessness as endemic to Russian life and history. But law has been a central element in governance and a component of social life throughout the history of the Russian state. The year 2014 marks the 150th anniversary of the landmark judicial reform in Russia that introduced major institutional and procedural changes to the empire's legal system. This workshop will open up several windows on Russian law — on its use in daily life, on court procedures and on users' attitudes toward the legal system. We will engage with the enduring and contentious debates over law and legal culture in Russia under tsars, Communist leaders and post-Soviet presidents, and seek to identify basic assumptions and characteristics of how Russian law works.
Presenters:
Sergei Antonov, Queens College, CUNY
Creditors and Debtors in Pre-Reform Courts: 'Inquisitorial' Procedure and Individual Discretion
Tatiana Borisova, National Research University Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg
The Russian Legal Tradition: Political and Technical Aspects
Cathy Frierson, University of New Hampshire
The 1991 Law “On Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression”: A Barometer for Transitional Justice in Post-Soviet Russia
Aaron Retish, Wayne State University
"At Court in the USSR: Peasants, the Law, and the Early Soviet Legal System"
Commentators:
Dan Hulsebosch, NYU Law School
Richard Wortman, Columbia University
