Soviets Have New Type of Law---Berman

"Americans suffer from the delusion that the Soviet Union is merely a police state and that there is no such thing as Soviet law and justice," Harold J. Berman, visiting professor of Law, told a Harvard Law School Forum audience last night.

"The Soviets have law and they have justice," professor Berman stated. His talk was the first of three lectures which he is delivering this week on "The Spirit of Soviet Law."

Leaders of the Soviet legal profession assert that their law is "essentially different from all types of law known for history." To determine whether or not Soviet law is of a new type and if no, where the novelty lies is an difficult task because of the relative youth of the Russian legal system, Professor Berman pointed out.

According to Berman, Soviet law in a curious mixture of Greek Orthodox doctrines, eastern legal customs, and western common law. It was not formulated until the 1930's and is still undergoing development, the observed.

Berman said that Soviet law had made "interesting innovations" in the trial of criminal cases. Russian prosecutors "focus on the state of mind of the accused" and call in psychiatrist to find out what drove the accused to crime, he reported.

Severity of sentence depends on how fully a defendant realizes the nature of his crime, and an ignorant man may get off lightly while more extreme punishment is meted out to a well-educated man, Berman continued.

"While Soviet law deals lightly with crimes against persons and personal property, t is harsh with crimes where the state or state property is involved," the professor said.