Law and Legal System of the Russian Federation 7th ed

This book is a detailed treatment of the Russian legal system written especially for English-speaking law students and lawyers. While it is designed primarily as a casebook, extended discussions of the law, numerous citations to original Russian sources, and detailed suggestions for finding these sources on the Internet also make it useful as a reference for scholars specializing in Russian studies and for lawyers who know Russian but not Russian law.

The Seventh Edition of the Law and Legal System of the Russian Federation covers such changes as the adoption of the Code of Administrative Court Proceedings, major packages of amendments to the Civil Code and to legislation concerning commercial and investment arbitration, important restructuring of the judicial system, amendments to the Law on the Bar (Advokatura) and increasing controls on public demonstrations and the Internet. It also contains a “redlined” version of the Constitution of the Russian Federation showing both the prior text and the major amendments approved by the Russian Parliament in 2020.

The authors have decades of experience following the Russian legal system, with one concentrating on human rights, court procedure, and criminal law and procedure, the other on civil, commercial, and tax law.

Chapters cover key aspects of the Russian legal system, including sources of law, the judicial system, the legal profession, constitutional law, individual rights, civil and commercial law, private international law, foreign investment law, tax law, civil and administrative procedure, and criminal law and procedure.

The book covers major changes in Russian law since the previous edition was published, including more reliance on judicial precedent, increasing the independence of criminal investigators from prosecutors, attempts to deal with abuse of the legal system by corrupt officials to steal businesses from their rightful owners, and the closing loopholes in the tax system. The new edition also chronicles the continuing struggle of the European Court of Human Rights and activist Russian lawyers to push Russian law toward international standards.