DOES RUSSIA NEED A DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LAW?

Abstract

In Russia, there has been a long-standing effort to develop a special law against domestic violence, as well as a debate on the need for such a law. In 2016, such a bill was sent to the State Duma but received negative feedback and was withdrawn. In 2019, work on the adoption of such a law resumed and a draft was developed and posted on the official website of the Federation Council. However, this draft also received a lot of criticism. In this context, the author considered it important to address the issue and conduct an analysis. Objective: Analysis of the draft laws "On prevention of domestic violence in the Russian Federation" 2016 and 2019 in the context of the current legal regulation, international and foreign experience. Results: the author concluded that the existing legal regulation does not adequately address the issue of prevention of domestic violence and does not protect victims of such violence. A large number of measures which could help to solve this problem are absent in the Russian legal system.