State of Independence Institutes of Justice in the Russian Federation: Sociological Research

This article is devoted to the study of the results of the sociological state of the domestic justice system. The relevance of the study is due to a number of fundamental factors. First, justice is an integral and integral part of the ontological basis of any civilized society. It is called upon to serve society as clamps and ensure its internal stability by reducing the level of antagonism and fair resolution of conflicts. Secondly, justice as the key value of society works on protecting its ideals and the idealization of society itself, serves as a motive for self-criticism and a mechanism for self-improvement. Thirdly, according to the level of independence and independence of the justice system in the modern world, it is estimated the development of society and its institutions, the culture of its goals and the values professed.

By virtue of the noted fundamental factors, the Laboratory of Political and Legal Research of Lomonosov Moscow State University was developed, and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research supported a scientific and sociological project to obtain objective and reliable information about the state of the domestic justice system. At the same time, a new feature of the project was the proposal to explore the topic “from the inside”, in contrast to other projects, to generalize and analyze the opinions of the main subjects of justice on the level of their own independence and independence as the center and structure-forming elements of the system.

Thus, the fundamental scientific task of research is in the knowledge of the “internal” laws of the functioning of the domestic justice system and the mechanisms for its adoption by the main representatives of law enforcement decisions in Russian realities. In this regard, for the first time, an attempt was made to conduct a focused and full-fledged study of the state of independence of law enforcers through clarification of their internal well-being and attitude to power, public opinion, the media, their own leadership and professional environment.

Taking into account the task, specialists initially developed a set of indicators for measuring the state of independence of investigators, prosecutors and judges, as well as criteria for assessing the level of pressure on them and interference with their procedural activities. Then, a large-scale sociological survey of officials at various levels, directly carrying out the law-applying functions in the system of judicial authorities of the Russian Federation — judges, prosecutors and investigators. According to the results of the analysis and formulated findings of the survey.

As part of the survey, more than 800 law enforcement officers of the Russian Federation were interviewed: judges, prosecutors and investigators from different regions of the country.

The author has formulated conclusions on the results of the study.