Cover Osteuropa 7/2005

In Osteuropa 7/2005

Legal Nihilism in Action
The Yukos-Khodorovskii Trial in Moscow

Otto Luchterhandt


Deutsche Fassung

Abstract

The conviction of Mikhail Khodorovskii and Platon Lebedev as villainous figures guilty of white collar crime will go down in history as a spectacular scandal of justice in the history of Russia in the 21st century. By serving as the henchmen for Russia’s executive branch, which has long since grown all but omnipotent, the general prosecutor and the courts have fabricated a criminal case by systematically and cynically violating basic principles of rule of law. A defeat for Russia at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg has been preprogrammed.

(Osteuropa 7/2005, pp. 7–37)

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Legal nihilism in action