The Realist and Rhetorical Dimensions of the Protection of Religious Feelings in Russia
In: Review of Central and East European LawThe authors examine how the Russian judiciary formulates legal policies when adjudicating cases in which religious beliefs are concerned. First, the authors describe the framework within which their research on this matter is conducted, basing it on the theory of legal argumentation. Applying this framework to the investigation of Russian court practice has enabled the authors to discover important features, which they argue are characteristic of legal reasoning of the judiciary in this category of cases. In particular, the authors note that, at least until the present, the Russian Constitutional Court has chosen to abstain from crafting principles of legal policy regarding religious issues. Furthermore, in religious cases, the Russian judiciary—by and large—does not follow the jurisprudence of the ecthr, and the Russian Supreme Court has no clear-cut policy in handling these cases. In such a situation, ordinary judges choose individual strategies. These are indispensable insomuch as fidelity to the letter of the law is inadequate for adjudicating such cases. Russian court practice (from 1997 on) in religious cases can be more easily understood from this perspective than it can in the light of presumed political influence.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
28
Hans Kelsen, General Theory of Norms ( Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1991, Michael Hartney’s translation of Kelsen’s opus Allgemeine Theorie der Normen (1979)).
-
111
In 1994, the roc adopted its Anti-Sectarian Policy: Opredelenie Arkhiereiskogo Sobora Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi "O psevdokhristianskikh sektakh, neoiazychestve i okkul’tizme" (2 December 1994), in Sobranie dokumentov Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi, Vol.2, part 1 (Izdatel’stvo Moskovskogo Patriarkhata, Moscow, 2014), 365–367. Point 9 of this 1994 Policy asserts that new religious movements "destroy the traditional order of life […] and our spiritual-moral ideal, and endanger the integrity of the national mentality and cultural identity". Professor Aleksandr Dvorkin—one of the most influential Russian Orthodox specialists on new religious movements—does not hesitate to classify Jehovah’s Witnesses or Scientologists as "totalitarian sects" that must be disbanded as soon as possible. Aleksandr Dvorkin, Sektovedenie: Totalitarnye sekty. Opyt sistematicheskogo issledovaniia (Izdatel’stvo Bratstva imeni A. Nevskogo, Nizhnii Novgorod, 2003). See an interesting assessment of the anti-sectarian policies of the roc in Western literature by Harold J. Berman: "Freedom of Religion in Russia: An Amicus Brief for the Defendant", in John Witte and Michael Bourdeaux (eds.), Proselytism and Orthodoxy in Russia: The New War for Souls (Orbis Books, New York, ny, 1999), 265–284.
-
119
As early as 2012, this Court noted its concerns about "the unusual terms for the vocabulary used in the criminal-law doctrine" and about possible overlaps of this corpus delicti with others from Criminal Code. Official statement of the scrf signed by scrf Vice President Anatolii A. Tolkanenko, "Na proekt Federal’nogo zakona ‘O vneseniii izmenenii v Ugolovnyi kodeks Rossiiskoi Federatsii’" (29 September 2012) No.2-ВС-5457/12, available at <http://base.consultant.ru/cons/cgi/online.cgi?req=doc;base=PRJ;n=104705>.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 170 | 39 | 2 |
| Full Text Views | 137 | 5 | 3 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 12 | 2 | 0 |
The Realist and Rhetorical Dimensions of the Protection of Religious Feelings in Russia
In: Review of Central and East European LawThe authors examine how the Russian judiciary formulates legal policies when adjudicating cases in which religious beliefs are concerned. First, the authors describe the framework within which their research on this matter is conducted, basing it on the theory of legal argumentation. Applying this framework to the investigation of Russian court practice has enabled the authors to discover important features, which they argue are characteristic of legal reasoning of the judiciary in this category of cases. In particular, the authors note that, at least until the present, the Russian Constitutional Court has chosen to abstain from crafting principles of legal policy regarding religious issues. Furthermore, in religious cases, the Russian judiciary—by and large—does not follow the jurisprudence of the ecthr, and the Russian Supreme Court has no clear-cut policy in handling these cases. In such a situation, ordinary judges choose individual strategies. These are indispensable insomuch as fidelity to the letter of the law is inadequate for adjudicating such cases. Russian court practice (from 1997 on) in religious cases can be more easily understood from this perspective than it can in the light of presumed political influence.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 170 | 39 | 2 |
| Full Text Views | 137 | 5 | 3 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 12 | 2 | 0 |