Posts Tagged ‘putin’
Russia and the Rule of Law
EU Russia Centre
by Anthony Brenton, a former UK ambassador to Russia
The inadequacies of Russia’s legal and judicial systems have recently been very much on display. The second trial of fallen oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, which looks no less politically motivated than the first, is approaching its close. We have just marked the first anniversary of the death in custody of Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, imprisoned for a year without charge for exposing deep corruption in the Russian Interior Ministry. Yet another respected investigative journalist has been beaten up, and another opposition oligarch found himself subject to the aggressive attention of the Tax Police. Russia has fallen to 154th place (out of 178) in Transparency International’s ranking of countries in terms of the perceived corruption of their public officials (including police and judges), placing Russia well below eg Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Nigeria. Close to 30% of the cases currently awaiting attention by the European court of Human Rights now concern Russia, far more than for any other country.
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Sergei Magnitsky one year on
16 November 2010 – One year ago today, three Economist journalists sat in a Moscow restaurant discussing the prospects for the Russian economy with a smart Western banker, who argued that our coverage of Russia was far too harsh, and that business was thriving. The smart new restaurant, full of customers, seemed to support his words.
A few hours earlier, Sergei Magnitsky, a corporate lawyer representing Hermitage Capital Management, once Russia’s largest portfolio investor, died mysteriously in pre-trial detention after being repeatedly denied medical care and in effect subjected to what in most civilised countries would be considered torture. At the time, few people outside the small world of Russian investors and a few human-rights activists had heard of Mr Magnitsky. A year later, his death has become a symbol of the mind-boggling corruption and injustice perpetrated by the Russian system, and the inability (or unwillingness) of the Kremlin to change it.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
