Anna Swedin | January 18, 2026
But if . . . everything depends on the arbitrary will of . . . persons who have the power to apply or not apply the law, what is the use of having law courts at all?
The contemporary Russian legal system suffers from excessive corruption by lawyers who represent the interests of the prosecution above their clients. This piece explores the historical, cultural, and societal factors that may inform why this corruption continues despite the Russian Federation’s ethical code, which instructs the advokatura class of lawyers to abide by “general principles of morality in society.”
Russia’s Legal Profession
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Russian Federation has adopted new legislation at a rapid pace and its legal system remains in a state of continual development. The legal profession is comprised of a number of different roles: all lawyers (iuristy) share a common educational experience but splinter into different groups, each with its own professional standards. In the Soviet era, these included prosecutors (prokurory), litigators (advokaty), in-house lawyers (iuriskonsul’ty), notaries (notariusy), judges (sud’i), and lawyers working for the state bureaucracy. All of these lawyers, aside from the advokaty, formerly worked for the state (as did virtually all Soviet citizens during this time). Despite having relatively greater independence during the Soviet era, advokaty were nevertheless closely monitored by the Communist Party. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Party’s power dissipated, essentially privatizing the advokatura (those who worked as advokaty). In-house lawyers (iuriskonsul’ty) and notaries (notariusy) have also shifted to the private sector in post-Soviet Russia.
Today, approximately 75,000 lawyers are members of the Russian advokatura. There are 7,900 notaries (notaryusi) and an estimated 2,000 intellectual property lawyers (patentni poverenni). No total count is available for the remaining population of lawyers in the private sector since they are not regulated, though it is generally considered that they are very significantly more numerous than the advokatura. Presently, the advokatura represents the largest fully organized group of legal professionals in Russia, possessing a hierarchical structure, institutions, procedures, and agreed ethics standards.
Corruption & “Pocket Lawyers”
In Russian society, institutional incentives have encouraged prosecutors (prokurory) to give more deference to conviction rates than actual guilt or innocence. Conviction rates in non-jury trials routinely exceed 95%. Political influence continues to pervade the criminal justice process, and the practice of bypassing law when deciding cases with political resonance is still alive and well. The retention of institutional mechanisms operating in favor of conviction are evident in Russia’s “accusational bias.” An investigator (sledovateli) or prosecutor (prokurory) rarely stops a criminal proceeding because acquittals have historically been stigmatized as a sign of failure for the official concerned. Moreover, neither prosecutors nor investigators in Russia possess the legal power to dispose of cases through forms of diversion or informal dispositions. Judges are not sufficiently autonomous and powerful to hold prosecutors to account, and judges presiding over criminal cases have been encouraged to cooperate with the prosecution, avoiding acquittals for fear of spoiling the record of the stability of sentences, the most important criterion of performance.
Many lawyers appointed to criminal defendants to provide state-funded legal aid do not provide a competent or effective defense to their clients, and instead routinely seek to secure convictions. Termed “pocket lawyers,” these lawyers serve the interests of the investigator, prosecutor, or other powerful state actors rather than their clients. Often, “pocket lawyers” are those appointed to provide state-funded defense, referred to as “appointed lawyers.” The obligation to ensure the presence of a defense lawyer lies with the investigation as well as with the court, creating the possibility that the investigator will invite lawyers who tend to cooperate with the investigation, against the interests of the client. The income of the defense lawyer also depends on the investigator.
Unlike the prokurory, the advokaty have historically held the greatest degree of freedom from state influence, maintaining some level of quasi-independence in their representation of individuals. All members of advokatura are subject to the Code of Professional Ethics of Lawyers and face disciplinary sanctions for infringements of the Code. The Code enshrines high ideals and principles of the profession; however, in practice, the profession has failed to sufficiently address the problem of corrupt “pocket lawyers,” and there seems to be a certain level of tolerance for these issues.
Russia’s 2003 Code of Ethics
The Law on Advokatura specifically delegates to the advokatura, represented by the All-Russia Congress of Advocates, the authority to promulgate ethical rules of the profession. The resulting 2003 Code of Ethics (Code) sets high standards of professional ethics of lawyers, and its provisions provide strong guarantees for the independence of the legal profession. The Code establishes rules of conduct that are mandatory for every advokat based on the moral criteria and traditions of the legal profession. The Code requires advokatura to act with honesty, good faith and competence—and to defend their clients’ rights and interests vigorously. Advokaty are prohibited from acting contrary to their client’s legitimate interests, providing legal assistance guided by considerations of the lawyer’s own benefit or outside pressure, cooperating with investigators in the course of providing legal services, or exploiting personal ties with those working in the judiciary and law enforcement. Nor may a lawyer take a position on the case that is opposite to the client’s position and act contrary to their will. The Code is explicit that an advokat “is obliged to observe the customs and traditions established in the legal profession that correspond to the general principles of morality in society.” (Art. 4, clause 3).
The Russian View of Morality
Morality is broadly defined as a certain system of rules, principles, values or virtues, whereas ethics is moral philosophy—the theory of morality. This understanding of morality is not limited to such moralities that regard good motifs or the good will as necessary elements of moral conduct. One may also differentiate morality from ethics by considering morality from the internal point of view, ethics from the external. It is widely understood that to view an act from a moral point of view is to consider its effects upon persons, according to moral principles and rules. Though circular, this notion of morality focuses on actions and their consequences for other persons and refers to norms (rules and principles). Based on the Judeo-Christian tradition, this standard view largely answers the question, ‘What shall I do?’ by reference to norms, specifying and applying them to the particular problem at hand. Moral judgements are also typically deemed intersubjectively obligatory, categorical, and universalizable.
Russia possesses a historical backdrop and societal worldview that makes any straightforward application of “morality,” as it is recognized by western democracies, inapposite. Firstly, Russians have historically viewed the legal system with doubt, suspicion, cynicism, and even hostility, as evidenced by many Russian folk sayings and proverbs expressing discontent with law and legal institutions—some of which were in reaction to the Judicial Reforms of 1864, which ostensibly sought to expand individual liberties (e.g., by eliminating serfdom). Moreover, Russians are known to have been critical and resentful of the law as it was often perceived as a form of western imperialism. These perspectives in response to law still resonate with the Russian people today.
Complicating matters is the fact that Russian culture has developed in the wisdom of the Byzantine tradition and Russian Orthodox Church. Underscoring the Roman Catholic Church were “notions of mutual obligation and contract” and the understanding that “performing one’s agreements was a matter of honor regardless of the subject matter of the agreement.” The principles and values of Roman Catholicism produced “competing legal jurisdictions and a highly rational, scholastic, textual orientation to religion . . . .” whereas traditional Russian Orthodoxy emphasizes the mystical and subjective, rather than the objective, formalistic, and rationalistic. While intellectuality and philosophizing governed the Roman Church tradition, Russian Orthodoxy gave special importance to “the personal ‘religious experience,’ the mystical versus the intellectual experience,” and, for centuries, even fostered the development of a theocracy, combining church and state, unlike the Roman Church’s “legalistic view of the world” which separated these institutions. The Russian criticism of the legalistic, formalistic nature of western society is encapsulated in Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s denunciation of law as a paradigm for morality:
“[A] society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man . . . . The letter of the law is too cold and formal to have a beneficial influence on society. Whenever the tissue of life is woven of legalistic relations, there is an atmosphere of moral mediocrity, paralyzing man’s noblest impulses.”
An additional consideration is that Russians are a very patriotic people, and seek a leader to project a strong Russia and derzhavnost—the status of being a great world power. Consequently, Russians have accepted leaders who provided a strong image and international status, even at the expense of individual rights or the diminution of other principles of western-style democracy. Part of Putin’s appeal are his declarations affirming and reminding Russians of their inherent greatness and strength—derzhavnost. Putin reinterpreted the traditional strong state ideal by incorporating more-modernized elements such as economic reform and “managed democracy,” resulting in a uniquely Russian hybrid-style vision of democracy.
In sum, due to historical, societal, and political reasons, Russia has failed to develop a logical and rational value system for the rule of law. To many Russians, the law itself “does not symbolize morality, honesty, and justice. Rather, it is seen as a tactical game requiring expertise in maneuver, influence, and persuasiveness.” The law does not represent a moral truth for the Russian consciousness, but rather a formalistic political instrument to be wielded as a weapon of the state. The legal system is perceived as inefficient, arbitrary, and even hopeless—manifesting in a pervasive “legal nihilism.” Despite Russia’s resistance to objective, rational legal standards, the concept of “justice” to Russians holds a moral and spiritual value that can be reached through internalization, thoughtfulness, and collective consciousness. In the traditional Russian view, justice is thought to lead to higher truths, as well as God; justice symbolizes what man is capable of achieving independently, beyond the deficiencies of government and imperfections of the law.
I would posit that establishing legal codes of conduct will accomplish little without developing an underlying legal culture in which those laws and institutions are respected. Russia’s advokaty cannot be separated from the historical, societal, and philosophical underpinnings of Russian culture that retain such distrust for the legal system.