There have, of course, been constitutional changes and in the civil sphere, in which ADR is operative, there was first, on 3rd August 1992, the Law on the Fundamental Principles of Civil Legislation followed, on 1st January 1995, by the adoption of a new Civil Code, the various parts of which came into force over the following two years. The application of the Civil Code is subject to the decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation and to the decrees of the higher courts. Before describing the specific laws which govern arbitration and other forms of ADR, it is, perhaps, worth mentioning some general characteristics of the legal scene as it appears today. There are two superficially different aspects. First, there is the extraordinary tendency toward formalism, which is apparent both in judges and practising lawyers.
Technical distinctions are very important.
A case will suffer if a necessary document has not been prepared exactly right. On a different level, legal scholarship is highly respected and the influence of academics and of academic writing is great. Several senior judges are also professors and maintain some teaching responsibilities. Second, many of the great economic changes, which have taken place, have been moved by actors who have not felt themselves greatly constrained by considerations of legality. There is a degree of cynicism, or realism, which says that power, when it is recognised as authority, determines most issues.