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Адвокатское сообщество и качество правоприменения в России
In the past 10 years Russia has undertaken several attempts at reforming its law enforcement and judicial system, which, unfortunately, had little effect. One of the reasons lies in a lack of “feedback mechanisms” and a shortage of reliable information on the processes going on inside law enforcement agencies. The heavy-handed system of reporting (so called “palochnaya sistema”) not only impedes the obtaining of complete data on possible problems within the law enforcement system, but often motivates law enforcement officers to tamper with data and breach laws. In this article, we will show that from the theoretical point of view the recent tendencies in the Russian law enforcement system can be described as dominance of the “logic of discipline,” using the terms of Michel Foucault. We will consider the tools for external evaluation of law enforcement bodies’ performance using the data of the survey of 3317 attorneys in 35 Russian regions and the information on entrepreneurs’ complaints against corporate raiding filed with the Center of Public Procedures “Business against Corruption.” We will show that such indicators help identify “trouble zones” — regions and agencies where the current situation is more unfavorable than elsewhere. Therefore, external comparative evaluations of the quality of the law enforcement system could significantly enhance the information on existing problems in law enforcement available to the authorities and the public. In addition, by creating such a highly demanded public analytical product the lawyer corporation and business associations could achieve greater recognition from society and powers-that-be.