Northern (N): Soviet Union (NS). Legal Reform in Soviet Union

A file of correspondence and reports concerning the Soviet legal system. The correspondence covers articles published in Izvestiya including a piece on legal reform titled "On Certain Questions of Soviet Jurisprudence"; and an article by I. Vetrov, the Minister of Justice in the Belorussian S.S.R., in which he discusses proposed changes in criminal law following the introduction of new law codes in the republic. Further reports include a paper on changes in the Soviet legal system, which examines the overhaul of the judiciary since the death of Stalin and the trend towards greater "socialist legality"; a new law transferring judicial legislation to the Union republics; a new statute of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union; and the abolition of transport courts. The file also includes information provided by the American lawyer Harold Berman, whose Soviet contacts have passed on details about corrective labour camps and laws punishing the relatives of defectors.