Is Russia's Rule of Law Expanding? A Case Study in Restorative Justice (Research Brief)

This Short-Term Travel Grant was used as a planning trip to finalize research arrangements with partner scholars and research institutions for my 20-year-history of the 1991 law “On the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression” in Russia. The icing on the cake, desired but not anticipated, would be conducting some interviews and examining private archives. I was able to achieve all of my research objectives and to confirm that my preliminary hypotheses about the major phases of the law’s record were correct. In the mid-to-late 1980s, the governmental and non-governmental initiatives related to victims of political repression in the Soviet era emerged as a hallmark of M.S. Gorbachev’s glasnost. By 1989, three entities were actively engaged in developing the eventual legislation: the Politburo of the CPSU, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, and Memorial activists. The first fifteen years of the law’s existence saw considerable dedication of governmental resources to making the law real and to amending it several times to expand the categories of persons who qualified for special compensation/welfare benefits. All parties agree that FZ-122 of August 2004, which monetized welfare benefits and off-loaded many benefits to the regions from the federal government constituted a violation of the law’s intentions. The record of the law from January 2005 to the present has been a persistent contest between the regions and the federal government over funding, of beneficiaries demanding restoration of their former level of benefits, and considerable activity in the judicial system as the many stakeholders press their claims.

Cathy Frierson, of the University of New Hampshire, was a 2011-2012 Short-Term Travel Grants (STG) fellow.