Biography
Jane Henderson is an academic lawyer with a long-standing interest in foreign and comparative law, and particularly the Russian legal system. She graduated from University College London in 1973, having been awarded the Joseph Hume Scholarship for Jurisprudence. She went on to postgraduate study, specialising in Socialist legal systems and English legal history, and having completed her Master’s degree at London University was directly appointed in 1974 as Lecturer in the Laws of Eastern Europe in the newly established Centre of European Law at King’s College London. In the Autumn of 1976 she established for the first time at King’s a course in Soviet Law, since 1993 revised as ‘Soviet and Post-Soviet Legal Systems’. Since 1986-87 Mrs. Henderson has also been an Adjunct Professor at the University of Notre Dame London Law School, where she runs a post-graduate seminar series on the Russian Legal System for the Concannon Programme of International Law. As well as her teaching expertise, Mrs Henderson also has considerable administrative experience, having served three year placements successively as undergraduate welfare co-ordinator and undergraduate admissions tutor. She currently holds the post of Senior Lecturer in the Laws of Eastern Europe.
Research
Mrs Henderson’s main research interests and publications have been concerned with aspects of the Soviet and Russian legal systems.
The main concentration has been on public law issues in Russia: constitutional innovations; separation and balance of powers; the formation of the Federal Assembly (legislative chamber), in particular the upper chamber, the Council of the Federation; President Putin’s innovation of the State Council; and the establishment and working of the Russian Constitutional Court, including its use of international law.
Mrs Henderson has also written on a number of administrative law issues: the system of administrative commissions and the code of administrative violations; the establishment of a mechanism for dealing with citizens’ complaints, and current problems in administrative law. She has published papers on aspects of the legal profession and legal services, the role of the judiciary, the re-establishment of jury trial in Russia and of the courts of justices of the peace (local judges analogous to English District Judges, Magistrates’ Court).
Currently she is researching various aspects of the Russian state structure and constitutionalism.
She is the rapporteur on Russia for the journal European Public Law.
Publications
- 'Freedom of Information in Russia' forthcoming in European Public Law 2011, volume 17(2)
- The Constitution of the Russian Federation: A Contextual Analysis, part of the Constitutions of the World in Context series (Oxford, Hart, 2011)
- 'Tenure and Discipline Developments in Russia' European Public Law 2011volume 17(1) 1-10
- The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation: the Establishment and Evolution of Constitutional Supervision in Russia in Constitutional Courts: A Comparative Study, edited by Andrew Harding and Peter Leyland (London, Wildy, Simmonds & Hill Publishing, 2009)
- “Entrepreneurs and consumers as subjects of civil law” in William Simons (Ed.) Private and Civil Law in the Russian Federation Law in Eastern Europevol. 60 (The Hague, Nijhoff, 2009)
- "Constitutional Justice in Russia" vol.34 Review of Central and East European Law issue 1 (2009) 37-69 (with Dr Marina Lomovsteva)
- "The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation: the Establishment and Evolution of Constitutional Supervision in Russia" in vol.3 Journal of Comparative Law (2008) issue 2, 138-157
- "Regional Constitutional Justice in the Russian Federation" vol.14 European Public Law issue 1 (2008) 21-33
- "Making a Drama out of a Crisis: The Russian Constitutional Court and the Case of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union" vol. 19 King's Law Journalissue 3 (2008), 489–506
- The Russian Constitutional Court and the Communist Party Case: Watershed or Whitewash?, Communist & Post-Communist Studies vol 40 (1) 2007, 1-16
- "The Russian Constitutional Court to the Rescue: Freedom of Political Comment Reasserted" vol.11 European Public Law issue 1 (2005) 17-29
- "Signs and Portents" vol.8 European Public Law issue 3 (2002) 321-332
- "Redefining Russia’s Federal Structure" vol.6 European Public Law issue 4 (2000) 496-505
Teaching
Elements of the Law of Contract
Russian Legal System