Liability for obstructing the work of advocates in the Russian Federation

In the article the author examines responsibility for obstructing the professional activities of defence lawyers in the Russian Federation in order to identify the compliance or inconsistency of the relevant legislation and law enforcement practice with the real social relations in the field of ensuring by the state guarantees for lawyers to exercise their professional activities and to determine the current level of protection of professional rights of lawyers in the Russian Federation. The study analyses both the norms of national criminal legislation and legislation on administrative offences. The analysis of the special norms of these branches of law (articles 294-296 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, article 5.39 of the Administrative Offences Code of the Russian Federation) is carried out. The author pays special attention to the issue of current legal regulation of violations of professional rights of defense counsel as a result of illegal interference in the activities of the latter in connection with his participation in the administration of justice, which definition often includes a reference to defense counsel in the context of criminal proceedings as its integral participant. The author describes article 6.10 of the new draft AOC RF as a positive trend in strengthening the status of a lawyer and the necessary expansion of guarantees of his professional activities. As a result of the study of normative legal acts, law enforcement practice and legal doctrine the author concludes that there is an imbalance in legislation and in law enforcement practice of protection of social relations related to the activities of court and law enforcement bodies on the one hand and the activities of a lawyer on the other, in connection with which there are grounds for changing the relevant laws and approaches of law enforcement bodies to their implementation.