6 - Laws in Conflict?

Summary

This chapter presents a descriptive account of legal pluralism in contemporary Chechnya. It describes the actors in charge of dispute resolution – the elders and religious authorities, as well as judges, prosecutors, and lawyers – and the most common disputes, and their forms of resolution. This chapter shows that an alternative legal system has evolved into a hybrid legal order, one characterized by judges in state courts sometimes implementing customary and religious norms, while imams and elders participate in state court hearings as witnesses or experts. Relying on original survey evidence, the chapter explores the factors that drive individual preferences for alternative legal systems. This analysis uncovers the role of gender, generational divides, education and social class, and ethnic and religious identities. Finally, the chapter outlines the political topography of Chechnya: uneven patterns of the use of state law across cleavages between urban and rural areas, the Russified northern region and mountainous areas in the south, and finally between the eastern region, which constitutes the core of Kadyrov’s regime, and the less tightly controlled western Chechnya.