Women's power

When I was researching Russia's Economy of Favours (Ledeneva 1998), I was inspired by the personal story of a doctor, Natalia, who was an effective blat broker in her time. Her story exemplified the experience of the inner workings of the Soviet system at the grassroots level. In How Russia Really Works (Ledeneva 2006), it was the story of a banker, Tatiana, that best illustrated for me the business dynamics of the transitional 1990s, with its criminality, unlawfulness and unfairness. As I looked for a story to illustrate the profound changes that have taken place in Russia since 2000, I knew it should be associated with the increasing importance of the judiciary and Russia's integration into the international legal order. I was particularly keen to explore gender aspects – the majority of judges are women – and their relevance for the analysis of the key feature of sistema, ‘telephone justice’ (Swamy et al. 2001). ‘Telephone justice’ is a colloquial phrase to denote inequality before the law, selectivity in law enforcement and the consequent gap between law and justice.

The first decade of the twenty-first century produced a ‘whistle-blowing’ trend among the Russian judiciary, with a number of judges speaking out about the fear they felt and the administrative pressure they had experienced (see also Kaminskaya 2009). Several testified that, at a higher level, influence with judges and prosecutors can yield desired results in criminal, commercial and civil trials and that, even if unfavourable judgments are handed down, there are ways to ensure that they are not enforced (see interviews with Sergei Pashin). In 2004, Olga Kudeshkina made headlines as the first Russian judge to speak openly about political interference in the Russian justice system. Dismissed from her position as a judge in the Moscow City Court for her non-compliance with informal commands, Kudeshkina took her case to the ECtHR in Strasbourg, and won.