Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Russian Early Modern Criminal Procedure and Culture of Appeal

Russian Early Modern Criminal Procedure and Culture of Appeal This article explores early modern criminal procedure and the emergence of a culture of appeal in the Russian system of criminal justice. It raises several important questions: Why did the appeal procedure not function as an ultimate guarantee of justice? How did Russian procedural law make appeals nothing more than the last stop on an ‘assembly line’, as a confirmation of a verdict rather than another court instance? How was criminal procedure connected with the political regime and a broader understanding of justice in early modern Russia? And what was then the ultimate goal of appeals that encouraged litigants to proceed with their cases to the highest court authorities? The author argues that Russia developed a so-called ‘appeal culture’, i.e. , a situation in which individuals were willing to proceed with an appeal despite the quality of judicial decisions. Coupled with selective justice and a subjective understanding of fair trial, the appeal became one of the main means of acquiring a desirable verdict or, at least, of preventing an adversary from receiving such a verdict. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Review of Central and East European Law Brill

Russian Early Modern Criminal Procedure and Culture of Appeal

Review of Central and East European Law , Volume 38 (3-4): 295 – Jan 1, 2013

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/russian-early-modern-criminal-procedure-and-culture-of-appeal-XLtutAn2Lw

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2013 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
ISSN
0925-9880
eISSN
1573-0352
DOI
10.1163/15730352-00000005
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article explores early modern criminal procedure and the emergence of a culture of appeal in the Russian system of criminal justice. It raises several important questions: Why did the appeal procedure not function as an ultimate guarantee of justice? How did Russian procedural law make appeals nothing more than the last stop on an ‘assembly line’, as a confirmation of a verdict rather than another court instance? How was criminal procedure connected with the political regime and a broader understanding of justice in early modern Russia? And what was then the ultimate goal of appeals that encouraged litigants to proceed with their cases to the highest court authorities? The author argues that Russia developed a so-called ‘appeal culture’, i.e. , a situation in which individuals were willing to proceed with an appeal despite the quality of judicial decisions. Coupled with selective justice and a subjective understanding of fair trial, the appeal became one of the main means of acquiring a desirable verdict or, at least, of preventing an adversary from receiving such a verdict.

Journal

Review of Central and East European LawBrill

Published: Jan 1, 2013

Keywords: appeal; early modern Russia; criminal procedure; revision

There are no references for this article.