The Right to a Defense,What it Entails and Where it is Going

As is known, the judicial and legal reform begun in 1988 was conceived on a broad scale. It comprised a set of measures to improve the most important components of the Soviet legal system as a whole, ranging from the legislative mechanism and its further democratization to questions bearing on the organization and activity of the courts and all law-enforcement organs, as well as the training of jurists and the legal education of the entire population, to the extent that this is possible. This approach was called for by the commitment, which had become quite popular, to the establishment of a law-governed state. And it is characteristic, among such ambitious and lofty tasks, that one of the key places was reserved for modernization of the system of justice, including criminal cases. Against this background, special attention has been given to the necessity of a maximum guarantee of the right to defense.