With Justice for (Almost) All

The system that was to fade away is now arbiter of everything

Noon in the Babushkinsky District People's Court in northern Moscow. The judge, a petite brunet in a striped blouse and skirt, enters the room. Two citizen-jurists called "people's assessors," an elderly man and a young woman, follow her to the high-backed chairs behind the bench. On the docket: Borisova vs. Borisov, a divorce case.

Boris Borisov, a researcher at a Moscow institute, and his wife Nadezhda, who have been married for 15 years, sit apart in the front row of seats facing the bench. They might have been able to dissolve their marriage after a three-month waiting period simply by applying at the civil registry office, but because a child is involved, a boy of four, a court proceeding is required.

The judge begins by questioning Mrs. Borisova, who tells about how her husband has been unfaithful and even ran off with another woman during her pregnancy. That ended all trust between them.

Judge: But you have lived together these four years?

Wife: If you call that living.

Judge: How does he treat you now?

Wife: We only communicate because of the child.

After eliciting a few more details--one point of contention has been Mrs. Borisova's dinners of potatoes or kasha--the judge turns to the husband. He seems as resentful of his wife's unforgiving attitude as she is of his infidelity. Eventually, the judge and the assessors reach their decision: no divorce, for now. A final judgment will be postponed until August in hopes that the Borisovs can settle their differences by then.

Laws and courts, like the state, were supposed to fade away as the Soviet system developed. Instead they have flourished. The Babushkinsky District People's Court, one of 32 in Moscow, is a typical tribunal empowered to try practically all civil and criminal cases. It employs ten full-time judges (seven of them women) and 750 people's assessors; these lay jurists, elected by co-workers or neighbors, consider the job an honor. Judicial business is booming, explains the chief judge, Polina Gorelova, because "here any citizen can take his case to court."

Many do. Civil cases account for about 85% of all judicial activity, reflecting the fact that courts have become not only a guardian of the state's authority but also the arbiter of all sorts of social matters. Says Columbia Law Professor John Hazard: "They spend most of their time determining who should get what apartment space, who has earned what salary, who should do what job, and so on."

Justice, Soviet-style, is relatively cheap and quick. Lawyers are not required in civil cases. The attorney's role is often played by the judge, who not only sets aside time to hear citizens' legal plaints but also prepares the person's case if the claim is valid. Courts hear disputes involving employment and alimony free of charge; in other civil actions, such as complaints about living quarters, the fee can be as low as 75-c-. Divorces, which are on the rise, if still less frequent than in the U.S. (.3 divorces per marriage, vs. America's .5), are also inexpensive: the basic filing fee is about $15, though additional charges can run the final divorce bill up to $150, a big chunk of the average worker's $240-a-month wage.

By law, a civil suit should be wrapped up within a month after it is filed, and a criminal pretrial investigation is to be completed within two months, unless an extension is granted. In some circumstances, accused persons can be held for nine months before trial, although this limit may be extended in cases of political crimes. Indeed, dissidents and other government targets live in an entirely different legal world. Once authorities decide that they want to convict a troublemaker, they bend any rules that interfere.

The U.S.S.R.'s legal system is a product in part of reforms launched by Nikita Khrushchev in the late 1950s and early 1960s to make Soviet justice fairer than it was in Joseph Stalin's era of terror. Each of the 15 republics has its own criminal code; they are basically similar to one another, dealing not only with standard crimes like theft and rape but also with peculiarly Soviet offenses. It is forbidden, for example, to "speculate") buy and resell products for profit) and to issue repeatedly poor-quality or nonstandard goods.

Some of the codes, particularly those of the Central Asian republics, reflect old regional attitudes. In Uzbekistan, which is predominantly Muslim and has a tradition of men taking many wives, bigamy has been made a crime punishable by a fine of $150 or a year of hard labor, but there is no law, or need for it, against bigamy in the Ukraine, where European monogamy prevails.

The Soviet system roughly follows the French and German model. While defendants have many legal safeguards, including a few that even Americans lack --they cannot be convicted on the basis of a confession alone, for instance--the concept of the rights of the accused is not as developed as it is in the U.S. Says Political Science Professor Paul Zinner of the University of California at Davis: "The key difference is that society's interests in the U.S.S.R., as interpreted by the judge, are paramount to any individual interest. So there is no question, as there is in the U.S., about protecting individual rights per se."

Criminal cases feature a pretrial investigation supervised by a state official called the procurator, who acts as both the prosecutor and protector of the suspect's interests; the defendant may not have counsel participate until the investigation is completed. Generally, procurators strive to be objective. Defendants whose cases reach court are almost always convicted, but that is because the procurators drop weak cases before they are tried. The accused are presumed innocent in theory. In practice, a person who is tried frequently has the burden of proving that he is not guilty. There are no juries; the judge and the lay assessors alone decide cases. While in U.S. courts only the defendant may appeal, Soviet law extends this right to both parties.

Matters of Communist Party discipline are settled in secretive party tribunals. Commercial disputes between state enterprises, typically involving delivery delays and complaints about quality, are dealt with by special arbitration panels. Minor civil and criminal matters are handled by Comrades' Courts, which deal with such petty matters as tenant grievances and driver's license suspensions. Under an antihooliganism law enacted in 1966 to cover crimes ranging from disorderly conduct to assault, a patrolman can write up a citizen for minor offenses like rowdyism and public drunkenness, and within 24 hours the chief of police will decide whether to fine the offender or forward the case to the People's Court.

Sentences can be harsh; some economic crimes, such as major embezzlement of state property, can even bring death. Judges generally do not hand down the long prison hitches that U.S. courts often mete out in anticipation of early parole, but Soviet convicts are more likely to serve full terms. And they toil hard, both in the prisons where repeat offenders or dangerous criminals are kept and in the work camps housing most of the convict population of about 2 million.

In the U.S. the Constitution is paramount, and courts can toss out laws judged inconsistent with it. In the U.S.S.R., laws enacted by the Supreme Soviet take precedence over conflicting provisions in the constitution, which is less a legal pillar than a policy statement; among other things, it limits the work week to 41 hours, and it obliges children to care for and help their parents. While the Soviets do have a Supreme Court, it does not, in effect, have the power to make law, nor can it strike down statutes enacted by the legislature.

Traditionally the Soviets have held lawyers in low esteem, which may be apt for a country in which laws were supposed to be necessary only during the transition to a self-governing society that would not require courts, prosecutors and police. But increasingly the Soviet authorities find themselves resorting to law to accomplish goals and deal with change.

One result has been a heavy demand for attorneys. The number of law schools has risen from 36 to 50 since 1970, and an unprecedented measure of prestige is accruing to the profession. Some observers have even suggested something that Marx, Lenin or Stalin would have found unthinkable: in 30 years or so, the country's Establishment could include a liberal sprinkling of lawyers.

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