Phenomenon of Politically Motivated Justice and Its Relevance for the Rule of Law in the Former USSR

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of the phenomenon of politically motivated justice and a general classification of political trials. The aim of the chapter is to develop a conceptual framework for identifying constitutional practices and roles played by trials against politicians and political parties in established democracies and in transitional states of the former USSR. Several steps are taken to outline the framework of my research. First, the chapter gives a succinct summary of the existing research on politically motivated justice and my contribution to the debate. Second, based on the already existing theories I give my own definition of a political trial in the context of the post-communist transition to the rule of law. Third, it offers a novel research concept I use in the next chapters in order to analyze recent political cases in the selected former Soviet republics and countries of Western Europe. The main goal of this analysis is to demonstrate the subversive character of politicized criminal justice which can override constitutional provisions and undermine democratic transformations in transitional former Soviet republics.