Kathryn Hendley's book contradicts much of what people are reading today on the operation of law in Russia. The core argument she makes is that law still operates relatively well on a daily basis for ordinary Russian citizens—making this an especially important work for the present political environment. It counters popular misconceptions of Russian justice through clear research based on years of personal observation and careful analysis.
Hendley's research reflects continuity from the Soviet period. My research in that period reached the same conclusion—when citizens’ legal concerns did not touch the political interests of the state or the personal interests of highly placed citizens, justice was often accessible and citizens could resolve their problems through the legal process. A persistent observer of the operation of law in the courts and the chambers of state-employed lawyers, she reaches the same results today. Hendley also conducted focus groups with citizens to assess their perceptions of law and the legal process, and to put in context what she observed.
Individual Russians can solve their residential problems with neighbors, familial conflicts, and auto accidents by using the existing legal processes of the Russian state. Without incurring great financial costs or great delays, many issues that significantly affect the daily life of citizens can be resolved successfully by lower-level attorneys of the legal process.
The world is not treated with rose-colored glasses. The author acknowledges the problems of corruption that permeate the system as she writes, based on the views of focus groups: “There was literally no element of Russian institutional life that they did not view as being susceptible to corruption” (121). Citizens took for granted that corruption was endemic both in the medical profession and in insurance companies, key points of interaction for citizens. Yet citizens’ attitudes towards corruption are a weak predictor of whether they will use the courts to address their problems (49).
The legal world that Hendley describes is one far removed from the legal treatment of political opponents or wealthy businessmen who are subject to corporate raids. Those individuals cannot expect justice and require extensive hours of highly-paid legal assistance. But the individuals that Kathryn Hendley describes live very different lives where incomes are limited, individuals still inhabit their apartments from the Soviet era, and private enterprise has left them behind. They represent a large share of the current Russian population.
Hendley finds important differences among those using the courts. Women were “almost 50 percent more likely to have initiated a claim in court than men” (54). Those who are employed are also more likely to use the courts. This is not an expected result because of the time-consuming efforts required to obtain court-needed documents. Nor is their greater use of courts explained by their larger personal assets because, as the author points out, the costs of litigation in Russia are low. Economic stability, she suggests, is a predictor of one's reliance upon the legal system. Another important determinant of whether the courts are used is age. Those most ready to turn to the courts are the older generation, whereas younger people, those born after 1988, are least likely.
The author humanizes the interactions of citizens and the legal process by following actual cases that reveal the reality of daily life at the low end of the legal spectrum. Some pensioners, with little to fill their daily lives, seek encounters with state lawyers more for the interactions than the need to resolve some pressing problem. But for many others, the courts perform more than a social function. She gives examples of how leaks in apartments and the resulting damage can be resolved and provides illustrations of successfully-negotiated settlements of automobile accident claims, although some resolutions are clearly disadvantageous to less sophisticated victims.
Hendley is very careful not to treat the Russian legal experience as some exotic environment removed from a reality known to many of her western readers. Using a wide range of western sociology of law and society literature, she helps us understand that Russian lawyers are working in a context that shares features common with our system. Her well-written book will be accessible and useful not just to specialists of Russia and Russian law, but to a larger community of research specialists. Its nuanced understanding of Russia today is a much-needed antidote to a lot of what we are exposed to in the contemporary popular press.
