“When They Come for You”: Legal Mobilization in New Authoritarian Russia

Abstract

As of 2012, the Russian State Duma passed a string of repressive laws on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), surveillance, and high treason. Under this “new authoritarian” regime, a growing number of Russians are investigated by the security services or put on trial for high treason. NGOs face selective prosecution and surprise inspections. While we know how lawyers use legal mobilization in democratic regimes where they can expect courts to be fair, legal mobilization remains understudied in regimes moving toward authoritarianism, where authorities pass repressive laws but enforce them erratically. Drawing on interviews with Russian lawyers, this article examines how lawyers represent two victim groups of state coercion: Russians under investigation for treason and prosecuted human rights NGOs. By examining how lawyers make strategic choices while coping with unfair courts, the random enforcement of laws, and shrinking resources, this article argues that state coercion does not deter lawyers from legal mobilization at domestic courts and the European Court of Human Rights. Instead, repressive laws push lawyers to reinvent their everyday practices to counter repressive legislation and conviction bias in the criminal justice system.

Performing Artivism: Feminists, Lawyers, and Online Legal Mobilization in China

“…In the early twenty-first century, the rise of the Internet and social media, coupled with the rapid popularization of smart phones and other personal electronic devices, provided new opportunities for social movements and legal mobilization across the world (Earl and Kimport 2011; Sobieraj 2011; Teng 2012; Valenzuela 2013; Lei and Zhou 2015; Coleman 2017; Gerbaudo 2017; Gillespie 2018). However, they have also given the state more advanced technological instruments for the purposes of control and repression (Druzin and Gordon 2018;van der Vet 2018). The Chinese state exemplifies an authoritarian state's capacities of systematic information control (Mackinnon 2011;Spires 2011;Wang and Minzner 2015;Tsai 2016).…”

Turning on the lights? Publicity and defensive legal mobilization in protest-related trials in Russia

“…1 Crowds and lines outside Moscow courts have become a new social phenomenon. Courthouses are thus not only sites of repression, but also "strategic arenas" for social movements and activists around which one may find a burgeoning field of lawyers ready to fight back (Doherty & Hayes, 2015;van der Vet, 2018van der Vet, , 2020. However, there are important tensions among them on the matter of publicizing legal cases.…”

“…The inquiry into defensive uses of publicity in politicized cases in Russia contributes to our understanding of the relationship between publicity and legal resistance in authoritarian contexts with only a partially monopolized public sphere, which allows criticism of authorities and judiciary in the media as well as through institutionalized mechanisms for civil society oversight (McCarthy et al, 2020). This article brings a new case study to the comparative dialogue on "cause lawyering" and "human rights lawyering" in authoritarian and repressive contexts by contrasting new empirical data to these ideal types (Cheesman & Kyaw Min San, 2013;Liu & Halliday, 2016;Sarat & Scheingold, 1998van der Vet, 2018van der Vet, , 2020. Zooming in on the relational configuration of trials of opposition protesters and the inventiveness of actors with little room to maneuver, it furthers scholarly reflection on law and resistance in repressive settings and under authoritarianism (Abel, 1995;Chua, 2014Chua, , 2019Israël, 2005;Moustafa, 2007;Stern, 2013;van der Vet, 2018van der Vet, , 2020.…”

“…This article brings a new case study to the comparative dialogue on "cause lawyering" and "human rights lawyering" in authoritarian and repressive contexts by contrasting new empirical data to these ideal types (Cheesman & Kyaw Min San, 2013;Liu & Halliday, 2016;Sarat & Scheingold, 1998van der Vet, 2018van der Vet, , 2020. Zooming in on the relational configuration of trials of opposition protesters and the inventiveness of actors with little room to maneuver, it furthers scholarly reflection on law and resistance in repressive settings and under authoritarianism (Abel, 1995;Chua, 2014Chua, , 2019Israël, 2005;Moustafa, 2007;Stern, 2013;van der Vet, 2018van der Vet, , 2020.…”

Regulation as Political Control: China’s First Charity Law and Its Implications for Civil Society

“…Just days after China’s National People’s Congress passed the long-awaited Charity Law in March 2016, Yongguang Xu (2016), a senior leader within Chinese philanthropy, declared that “grassroots organizations will be the Charity Law’s biggest beneficiaries.” Citing the relaxation of registration requirements and the possibility of public fundraising, he summarized the view of a number of other scholars and policymakers in proclaiming that “the future is very bright for the development of grassroots NGOs.” Yet in an era when restrictive and repressive measures toward civil society are being taken up around the world (Bromley, Longhofer, & Schofer, 2018; van der Vet, 2018), could such optimism be warranted? Based on in-depth interviews and a series of focus groups with grassroots NGOs around China, this article cautions against such rosy assessments.…”