With the exception of the relatively brief period from 1864 to 1917, courts have not enjoyed much status or independence in Russia and the Soviet Union. The first courts evolved in Russia in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries largely as a mechanism for enforcing the tsar's policies and for resolving disputes between subjects. The notion that the crown could be held accountable to the law – a fundamental feature of English law since the Magna Carta in 1215 – was never accepted by the monarchy nor by the Bolsheviks after the Revolution of 1917. The central problem confronting the judiciary today is establishing the the fundamental norm of an independent judiciary whose decisions are based solely on law, rather than political expediency, and are binding even on organs of the state.

Organization of the courts

With the collapse of the USSR in late 1991, the judiciary underwent substantial revision. Under the former constitution of the USSR there were all-union courts (e.g. the USSR Supreme Court, the Supreme Arbitrazh Court, and military courts) and union-republic courts and their subordinate courts at the regional, city and district levels.