Agnieszka Kubal - Böcker

Much of the media coverage and academic literature on Russia suggests that the justice system is unreliable, ineffective and corrupt. But what if we look beyond the stereotypes and preconceptions? This volume features contributions from a number of scholars who studied Russia empirically and in-depth, through extensive field research, observations in courts, and interviews with judges and other legal professionals as well as lay actors. A number of tensions in the everyday experiences of justice in Russia are identified and the concept of the 'administerial model of justice' is introduced to illuminate some of the less obvious layers of Russian legal tradition including: file-driven procedure, extreme legal formalism combined with informality of the pre-trial proceedings, followed by ritualistic format of the trial. The underlying argument is that Russian justice is a much more complex system than is commonly supposed, and that it both requires and deserves a more nuanced understanding.

Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia confronts the issue of access to justice and the realisation of human rights for migrants and refugees in Russia. It focuses on everyday experiences of immigration and refugee laws and how they work 'in action' in Russia. This investigation presupposes that the reality is much more complex than is generally assumed, as it is mediated by peoples' varied positionalities. Agnieszka Kubal's primary focus is on people, their stories and experiences: migrants, asylum seekers, refugees, immigration lawyers, Russian judges, and the Federal Migration Service officers. These actors speak with different voices, profess different ideologies, and hold opposite worldviews; what they hold in common is their importance to our understanding of migration processes. By this focus on individual views and opinions, Kubal highlights the complexity and nuance of everyday experiences of the law, breaking away from the portrayal of Russia as a legal and ideological monolith.

This book examines how contemporary migrants form and transform their involvement with the law in their host countries and which factors influence this relationship. It suggests a more comprehensive insight into the socio-legal integration of migrants by analysing the interplay between the new legal environment and migrants' existing culturally-derived values, attitudes, behaviour and social expectations towards law and law enforcement. Acknowledging the superdiversity of migration as a global issue, the book uses the case study of Polish post-2004 EU Enlargement migrants to examine values and attitudes to the rules that govern their work and residence in the UK and to the legal system in general. With wider international relevance than just Poland and the UK, this book makes a case for the meaningful employment of legal culture in socio-legal integration research and suggests far-reaching consequences for host countries and their immigrant communities.

Much of the media coverage and academic literature on Russia suggests that the justice system is unreliable, ineffective and corrupt. But what if we look beyond the stereotypes and preconceptions? This volume features contributions from a number of scholars who studied Russia empirically and in-depth, through extensive field research, observations in courts, and interviews with judges and other legal professionals as well as lay actors. A number of tensions in the everyday experiences of justice in Russia are identified and the concept of the 'administerial model of justice' is introduced to illuminate some of the less obvious layers of Russian legal tradition including: file-driven procedure, extreme legal formalism combined with informality of the pre-trial proceedings, followed by ritualistic format of the trial. The underlying argument is that Russian justice is a much more complex system than is commonly supposed, and that it both requires and deserves a more nuanced understanding.