Overuse in the Russian Criminal Justice System

Summary

INTRODUCTION

It is well known that the criminal justice system in the Soviet Union was needlessly repressive. It featured the death penalty and massive political crackdowns, especially during the Stalinist period. Gorbachev's perestroika made the system significantly more humane. Unfortunately, over the past fifteen to twenty years, the criminal justice system in Russia has gradually become increasingly repressive. Russian law enforcement is still dominated by repressive approaches, as I will show in more detail below.

OVERUSE OF CRIMINALIZATION

The new Russian Federal Criminal Code (1996) was relatively moderate in terms of the number of the actions and practices it criminalized. However, the original version criminalized such acts as “giving offence” (Article 130), “disorderly conduct” (Article 213), “imprudent property destruction or damage” (Article 168), as well as numerous so-called economic crimes, which were often only shady business practices, for example, knowingly false advertising (Article 182), illegal business (Article 181), and illegal loans (Article 176). These practices should have, in fact, been classified as misdemeanours or civil wrongs, not criminal offenses.

The Russian national legislature, the State Duma, has gradually criminalized more and more actions and practices, potentially making every citizen a criminal. For example, among many other actions, “offending the feelings of religious believers” (Article 148, as amended in 2013), “illegal entry into a secured area” (Article 215.4, adopted in 2015), “undesirable organizations” (Article 284.1, adopted in 2015), and “repeated violations of regulations for organizing and holding rallies, demonstrations, marches, and pickets” (Article 212.1, adopted in 2014) have been criminalized.

All of this has opened up huge opportunities for prosecuting any and all Russian citizens, as evidenced by the following criminal cases.

On 19 February 2012, five young women from the art group Pussy Riot performed the so-called punk prayer “Mother of God, Drive Putin Away” at Christ the Saviour Cathedral in Moscow. On 5 March 2012, three of the young women in the group (Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich) were arrested. On 17 August 2012, they were convicted of “disorderly conduct motivated by religious hatred or enmity” (Article 213.2) and sentenced to two years in prison.