Document Type

Article

Disciplines

International Law

Abstract

In early 1989, the Soviet Union employed police and military force to suppress violent political unrest in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. In further response to the unrest, the presidium of the Supreme Soviet, chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev, on April 8, 1989, enacted a harsh new political crimes decree (which appears as Appendix A to this essay). The April 8 decree raised the possibility of yet another wave of criminal prosecution of Soviet political dissidents because of new provisions which made it a crime to "insult or disparage" the Soviet state.

However, rapidly emerging political reform in the ensuing months not only prevented political prosecutions, but led to the repeal of the repressive decree. In May 1989, in the midst of new assertions of political independence by Soviet republics, the Congress of People's Deputies not only expressed its hostility to the repressive decree, but also undertook an extended debate on the importance of law as an instrument to restrain political repression and ensure political freedom.

The following month, the Congress, exercising its independence, took the extraordinary step of repealing the April 8 decree. Then, at tumultuous afternoon and evening sessions on July 31, 1989, the Congress enacted a new more restrained political crimes decree (which appears as Appendix B to this essay).

Yet, as events unfolded, the supremacy of congressional rule and the demise of "insulting" as a political crime was short-lived. President Gorbachev was publicly jeered during the 1990 May Day celebrations. He responded with a scathing attack on the demonstrators and promptly introduced new legislation which would make it a crime to "insult or disparage" the Soviet President; criminal penalties could be imposed not only on the person uttering the insult, but on the media publishing it. On May 23, 1990, the USSR Supreme Soviet adopted a potentially repressive "Law on Protecting the Honor and Dignity of the President of the USSR"(which appears as Appendix C to this essay).

During this entire sequence of events, the Soviet leadership extolled the virtue of the "rule of law" and insisted that the USSR was moving toward a "rule of law state". This essay traces these historic political and legal events in the context of the Soviet understanding of the "rule of law" and examines recent efforts to achieve comprehensive reform of the Soviet criminal law system.

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