Justice Enslaved: A Collection of Documents on the Abuse of Justice for Political Ends. Pp. 535. The Hague, Netherlands: International Commission of Jurists, 1955. No price
| Author | Francis H. Heller |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625630400163 |
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
181
kind,
it
is
to
be
hoped
that
these
studies
will
not
continue
to
be
limited,
as
is
thus
far
the
case,
to
the
institutional
differences
and
ideological
rivalries
among
democracy,
fascism,
and
communism.
Within
these
limits
the
present
survey,
subtitled
A
Study
o
f Military
Elites
in
the
Soviet
Sphere,
is
among
the
more
valuable
of
the
series.
Its
purpose
is
to
illumine
the
dilemma
of
Communist
power-holders
who
require,
simultaneously,
professional
skill
and
unquestioning
loyalty
from
mili-
tary
commanders.
Its
method
is
to
survey
the
careers
of
representative
generals
in
the
armies
of
Czechoslovakia,
Poland,
Ru-
mania,
Hungary,
and
China.
The
research
staff
comprises,
in
addition
to
Ithiel
de
Sola
Pool
as
editor,
George
K.
Schueller,
Robert
H.
Billigmeier,
Cary
Fisher,
Paul
Katona,
Cheng
Yuan,
Janusz
K.
Zawodny.
All
have
toiled
valiantly
among
obscure
sources.
Their
findings,
as
here
published
are
admittedly
out
of
date
in
some
details,
but
are
more
complete
than
could
reason-
ably
be
expected.
Numerous
new
insights
into
Communist
military
theory,
practice,
and
organization
are
afforded,
for
which
all
scholars
and
policy-makers
should
be
grateful.
Carping
criticism
of
so
difficult
an
enter-
prise,
here
executed
so
remarkably
well,
would
be
strictly
out
of
order.
It
may
nevertheless
be
noted
that
China
is
in
no
meaningful
sense
a
&dquo;satellite.&dquo;
Some
would
still
question
the
factual
accuracy
of
the
statement
(p.
57)
that
4,300
Polish
officers
were
&dquo;murdered
by
the
Russians
at
Katyn.&dquo;
And
it
may
be
doubted
whether
wishful
thinking
of
the
usual
cold
war
variety,
postulating
alternately
that
the
Communist
systems
are
menacing
monsters
of
invincible
might
and
malice
or
are
on
the
verge
of
internal
breakdown
because
of
insoluble
paradoxes,
represents
the
most
useful
orientation
of
scholarship
aimed
at
description,
analysis,
understanding,
and
prediction.
FREDERICK
L.
SCHUMAN
Williams
College
Justice
Enslaved:
A
Collection
of
Docu-
ments
on
the
Abuse
of
Justice
for
Politi-
cal
Ends.
Pp. 535.
The
Hague,
Nether-
lands:
International
Commission
of
Ju-
rists,
1955.
No
price.
This
compendium
of
materials
was
origi-
nally
prepared
for
the
use
of
the
lawyer-
delegates
from
forty-eight
countries
outside
the
Iron
Curtain
who
met
in
Athens
in
June
1955
for
the
International
Congress
of
Jurists.
It
is
now
being
distributed
in
English,
French,
and
German
versions
by
the
International
Commission
of
Jurists.
The
collection
contains
591
&dquo;documents&dquo;
arranged
under
four
main
heads:
Public
Law,
Criminal
Law,
Civil
and
Economic
Law,
and
Labor
Law.
In
each
instance
the
editors
have
used
appropriate
articles
from
the
United
Nations
Declaration
of
Human
Right
to
keynote
(by
contrast)
the
sub-
groups
of
evidentiary
materials.
The
case
to
be
made
is
unfortunately
no
longer
news:
it
is
that
the Soviet
nations
regard
and
utilize
the
legal
system
as
a
hand-
maiden
of
political
control
and
that
jus-
tice
there
is
&dquo;enslaved&dquo;.
One
rather
imag-
ines
that
the
German
title
might
have
used
the
word
Justiz,
with
its
connotation
of
law
administration-for
this
is
the
subject
of
the
volume.
The
materials
to
be
found
here
range
from
such
readily
accessible
items
as
sec-
tions
of
the
Soviet
constitution
to
deposi-
tions
from
Iron
Curtain
refugees
and
ex-
tracts
from
speeches
of
Satellite
law
offi-
cials
such
as
East
Germany’s
notorious
Frau
Benj~amin
and
Bulgaria’s
Nikola
Takov.
The
array
is
wide,
massive-and
soberly
depressing.
To
anyone
trained
in,
or
even
only
accustomed
to,
the
legal
tra-
ditions
of
the
West,
whether
common
law
or
civil
law,
the
partisan
polemics
of
the
judges
of
the
people’s
democracies
can
only
appear
as
sordid
travesties
of
anything
re-
sembling
a
legal
system.
The
International
Commission
of
Jurists
indicts
the
practices
portrayed
in
these
pages
as
flagrant
be-
trayals
of
the
rule
of
law
and
pleads
with
lawyers
throughout
the
free
world
to
strengthen
faith
in
the
rule
of
law
as
the
principal
foundation
stone
of
free
govern-
ment.
As
a
legal
brief,
marshalling
evidence
to
substantiate
its
charges,
this
is
an
impres-
sive
effort.
As
a source
for
students
of
judicial
administration,
it
offers
documen-
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