SOVIET LAW

also called Socialist Law, the law that developed in the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution of October 1917 and which, after World War II, was assimilated by other communist states. Although it had many of the characteristics of civil-law systems, including similar rules of procedure and legal methodologies, socialist law was distinguished from other legal systems by the influence of state ownership of the means of production, the pervasive influence of the Communist Party, the ties between the legal system and national economic planning, the denial of a distinction between public and private law, and the underlying conception of the law as a force for restructuring society and advancing the nation toward communism. The legal system of the Soviet Union was the principal model followed by other members of the socialist family of legal systems (e.g., Mongolia, China, eastern Europe, Cuba, Vietnam). Developed after the Russian Revolution of 1917, the origins of the legal system date back to the 10th century in Kievan Rus and reflect the influence of Byzantine secular and canon law and of Roman law via the civil-law tradition of western Europe. The Soviet authorities formally repealed all tsarist legislation in 1918 and undertook thereafter to establish a social system leading toward communism. Socialist law was based on the writings of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who proposed several general guidelines that were adopted by the founders of the new socialist legal system. First, the new legal system should eliminate the political power of the bourgeoisie (property-owning middle class); second, law should be the instrument of the state, not a limitation upon those who make policy; third, law should establish rules of public order that facilitate the transition of the state to socialism and eventually to the ideal of communism; and fourth, law should educate citizens on how they can help achieve the communist social order. Legislation was the principal source of law in the socialist legal system; custom was relied upon only in isolated commercial situations. Leading court decisions were published, but they constituted merely a guide to the application of law rather than a set of precedents. The basic law was the U.S.S.R. constitutionthe latest constitution being that of 1977, augmented in 1978 by constitutions of the 15 union republics and 20 autonomous republics. Under the U.S.S.R. constitution, certain matters were reserved exclusively for federal, or all-union, jurisdiction, and others were left to the union republics. In the principal branches of law, the all-union authorities enacted sets of fundamental principles of legislation binding throughout the land; these were then elaborated in codes of statutes by each respective union republic, which adapted the fundamental principles to its special circumstances. The principal republic codes included the criminal, civil, criminal procedure, civil procedure, family, labour, forestry, water, land, and correctional-labour codes. The Air Code and the Merchant Shipping Code were all-union codes exclusively. In 1922 the Russian republic established a three-tiered system of civil and criminal courts that remained basically unchanged throughout the history of the Soviet Union. The courts of first instance in the Soviet Union were the people's courts, which heard 95 percent of all civil and criminal cases. In all cases heard at first instance, at whatever level, the judge had to sit with two laymen, called people's assessors, elected for 2 1/2-year terms. The assessors served two weeks per year and had equal rights with the judge. Cases were decided by majority vote. Appeals were handled by provincial courts headed by professional judges, and the highest level of court, the Supreme Court of the republic, coordinated policy in all of the provinces. Soviet courts did not have the power of judicial review over the constitutionality of Supreme Soviet enactments. A separate system of military tribunals heard cases involving servicemen. A legal agency of exceptional importance was the Procuracy of the U.S.S.R. The Procuracy was a highly centralized institution, dating conceptually back to Tsar Peter I the Great in the early 18th century. The U.S.S.R. procurator-general was appointed by and accountable only to the U.S.S.R. Supreme Soviet. In turn, the procurator appointed subordinate procurators. The Procuracy had responsibility for overseeing the investigation of most criminal cases, for prosecuting on behalf of the state, and for exercising sweeping powers of supervision over judicial decisions and over the legality of administrative actions and draft normative acts. The Procuracy also supervised the administration of correctional-labour institutions. The socialist legal system produced many novel institutions. Because private ownership of most productive wealth had been abolished in many socialist states, legal codes tended to reflect the importance of state-owned property by imposing more severe penalties for theft of state-owned property than that of private, nonproductive property. While laws pertaining to sales, contracts, and property damage of consumer goods followed civil-law traditions, new laws were developed to govern transactions involving state property. In the U.S.S.R. a vast category of offenses did not come within the purview of the criminal law or the courts at all. These were administrative offenses, punishable summarily by a fine, disciplinary sanction, or, in some instances, administrative detention for up to 15 days. Fines frequently were imposed on the spot by the apprehending official or inspector. Other aspects of the legal system demonstrated how socialist law endorsed the intervention of the state in social relationships. Employers were compelled to follow strict guidelines in executing labour contracts; property owners were subjected to numerous restrictions on the use of their land, farms, or dwellings, which, in some countries, could be confiscated if they were not thought to be used productively; and marriage and divorce were secularized in nearly all socialist law countries in order to reduce the power of religion and to consolidate control of marital relationships within the purview of the state.