Terrorism and Trial by Jury in Russia

Abstract

The re-adoption of trial by jury by post-Soviet Russia in 1993 was heralded as a significant break with the discredited legal system of a crumbling regime. In less than twenty years the jury in Russian criminal trials has undergone a significant retrenchment. That process is particularly stark in the field of counterterrorism. This article will examine the history of trial by jury in Russia. It will detail the constitutional and legislative provisions adopted in the 1990s and will then examine the legal framework and political context, which gave rise to the rolling back of the jury in the counterterrorism context. Abandoning jury trial in the face of an ongoing terrorism threat was, perhaps, unsurprising. However, the authors will argue that this is in fact part of a wider unease with the very notions, which underpin the jury as an institution. Conditions for trial by jury appeared fertile but this was not the case: the Russian jury has shallow roots.