Reforming the Russian Legal System [Paperback]

Reforming the Russian Legal System is a comprehensive analysis of the forces that are shaping legal reform in the former USSR.This 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.This 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.Reforming the Russian Legal System is a comprehensive analysis of the forces that are shaping legal reform in 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. This book is addressed to students, lawyers, and business people interested in the former USSR, as well as scholars of Russian politics and law.Preface; 1. Pre-revolutionary Russian law; 2. The Bolshevik experience; 3. The history of legal reform; 4. Forging a new constitution; 5. Citizens and the state: the debate over the Procuracy; 6. In search of a just system: the courts and judicial reform; 7. Law and the transition to a market economy; 8. Legal reform in the republics; 9. Legal reform and the transition to democracy in Russia; Appendix; Notes; Index. This work should be essential reading for anyone trying to deal with Russia's legal system. Peter B. Maggs, Law & History Review Readers seeking an overview of the Russian leagal system will find much of interest in this book. Gordon B. Smith weaves together various literatures to create a succinct and compelling description of law and leagal culture prior tl3>