Activities of professional legal public associations of Kemerovo Oblast on the pages of the newspapers Kuzbass and Kuznetskiy Kray in 1990–2010

The period 1990-2010 marked the transformation in all spheres of life of Russian society. Restructuring and the transition from a centralized economy to a market economy contributed to major changes in the legal system. In these conditions of rapidly changing legislation, which society did not have time for, the role of a lawyer increases. The legal profession is becoming not only one of the most important social professions, but also the most demanded and paid. The adoption of the Law "On Public Associations" in 1990 led to a significant increase in the number of professional legal public associations, which in the course of their activities began to influence the socio-economic processes taking place in the state, its policies and law-making, while reflecting the place and role of a lawyer in civil society. The article provides a statistical analysis of such associations in Kemerovo Oblast contained in the register of the Ministry of Justice of Russia. The aim of the article is to show the results of an analysis of newspaper articles presented on the pages of the official regional print publication Kuzbass and the opposition publication Kuznetskiy Kray in 1990-2010, revealing the activities of such professional legal public communities as the bar, notaries, human rights public organizations, and associations of lawyers in scientific and educational environment. The article presents the results of a sample of these articles by subject and their number in each of the print media. The example of newspaper articles reveals the image of a lawyer in 1990-2010, which was influenced by the events taking place in the country during this period - the rapid growth of the market economy, privatization, business, criminalization, and at the same time the formation of jurisprudence against the background of the general legal illiteracy of post-Soviet society. The transformation of this image is shown. Particular attention is paid to activities of legal communities actively developing during the specified period and reflected on the pages of newspapers: legal education, free legal assistance to the population, public examination of draft regulatory legal acts, combating crime and corruption, . Based on the analysis of newspaper articles, it is concluded that in the first two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the context of the transition from confrontation to dialogue between the state and public associations, the latter, including professional legal public associations, function in the absence of organizational and financial support from the state. At the same time, the socially oriented activities of these associations are of particular importance for the population and lead to an increase in their demand in the structure of civil society. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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