Strategies and Tactics of Criminal Defenders in the Context of "Accusatorial Bias" ("obvinitelinyi uklon") in Russia

Abstract

The paper presents a sociological description of the Russian lawyers' work in criminal case in terms of theories of practical action (M. de Certeau, J.C. Scott) that are focused on tactics of «weak» party in social interaction and on metis as a kind of practical knowledge. The power asymmetry in the Russian criminal procedure in favor of accusatorial party places criminal defender in weak position and limits his/her resources. The paper summarizes three levels of this asymmetry: 1) micro context of everyday criminal case investigation, 2) legal based inequality of parties, 3) informal practices of defense rights' violation from investigators, prosecutors and judges. As results, strategical kind of action of the defender is limited by relationships with defendant and/or clients, while with other participants of criminal case investigation criminal defender is forced to act just tactically. On the material of expert interviews authors generalized several types of criminal defenders' strategies and tactics.