Judicial and Legal Reforms in Post-Soviet Countries
This course is intended to examine the key problems of transition of the Post-Soviet Countries to the democratic political regime. The focal point of the course shall be the judicial reforms and the way to adjust the judiciary and the judges to the needs and requirements of the market economy. Major questions will include
-the description of the constitutional system, political regime and the legal system of the Soviet Union;
-the reasons for the dissolution of the Soviet Union;
-the most pending problems that the former republics of the USSR and the former countries of the Warsaw Pact inherited from their Soviet past;
-the description of the constitutional systems, political regimes and the legal systems of Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Poland and Bulgaria;
-the specifics of judicial reforms in Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, Poland and Bulgaria; and
-the specifics of the reform of criminal procedure in these countries.