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“When They Come for You”: Legal Mobilization in New Authoritarian Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Freek van der Vet
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Abstract

As of 2012, the Russian State Duma passed a string of repressive laws on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), surveillance, and high treason. Under this “new authoritarian” regime, a growing number of Russians are investigated by the security services or put on trial for high treason. NGOs face selective prosecution and surprise inspections. While we know how lawyers use legal mobilization in democratic regimes where they can expect courts to be fair, legal mobilization remains understudied in regimes moving toward authoritarianism, where authorities pass repressive laws but enforce them erratically. Drawing on interviews with Russian lawyers, this article examines how lawyers represent two victim groups of state coercion: Russians under investigation for treason and prosecuted human rights NGOs. By examining how lawyers make strategic choices while coping with unfair courts, the random enforcement of laws, and shrinking resources, this article argues that state coercion does not deter lawyers from legal mobilization at domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights. Instead, repressive laws push lawyers to reinvent their everyday practices to counter repressive legislation and conviction bias in the criminal justice system.

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Articles
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , June 2018 , pp. 301 - 336
Copyright
© 2018 Law and Society Association.

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Footnotes

The author would like to thank Lisa Sundstrom, Wayne Sandholtz, Emma Hakala, Iiris Virtasalo, the anonymous reviewers, and the editorial team for their critical and helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. This work has been supported by grants from the Kone Foundation and Svenska Kulturfonden.

References

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