Undermining Trial by Jury in Russia in Counterterrorism and the Wider Criminal Law

The re-adoption of trial by jury in Russia in 1993 was heralded as a significant break with the discredited legal system of a crumbling regime. However, in less than twenty years the jury in Russian criminal trials has been significantly undermined; that process is particularly evident in the field of counterterrorism. This article examines the history of trial by jury in Russia, the constitutional and legislative provisions adopted in the 1990s, and the rolling back of these provisions in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Given the adoption of jury trial in a number of democracies in the early 1990s the underlying causes of the rapid Russian retrenchment are of significance beyond the Russian Federation. The jury was not a legal transplant in Russia and it was hoped that conditions were fertile for the jury to flourish. This has not proven to be the case: Russian jury trial may have a long history but it has shallow roots.