The nuts and bolts of it [Russian legal reform]

File Photo of Russian Constitutional Court

(Moscow News – themoscownews.com – Natalia Antonova – October 22, 2012)

Last week, we at The Moscow News hosted a debate on legal reform in Russia ­ and while the topic itself is a hot one, we were reminded of the fact that real reform is always pretty boring and prosaic.

In our discussion, which involved the UN’s Senior Human Rights Advisor to Russia, Ryszard Komenda, Pussy Riot lawyers Violetta Volkova and Nikolai Polozov, RAPSI’s head of information processing and legal expert Vladimir Novikov, InoSMI editorin- chief Alexey Kovalev, and Voice of America Moscow bureau Chief James Brooke, we quickly moved past the usual slogans and emotions surrounding Russia’s court system ­ and on to the stuff that will probably make anyone who is not intimately familiar with the courts yawn.

For example, did you know that one of the biggest problems when it comes to establishing transparency in the criminal courts is the fact that there are not enough resources or serious commitment to publish every single decision online? Sure, transparency is not in the interest of judges who may be corrupt ­ but it’s also an issue of professionalism and establishing reliable databases.

Speaking of professionalism, how about the fact that most judges come to the job after clerking in the courts ­ or else after working for the prosecutor’s office? This is a problem of human resources and a certain mentality: most defense lawyers are seen as “too soft” to be good judges, while it is automatically believed that someone who has spent years prosecuting people is going to make an excellent judge.

Most of this is the kind of stuff that doesn’t really make the headlines ­ and never will. And as Komenda kept pointing out throughout the evening ­ change will come slowly, following many rounds of meticulous work on all levels of the legal system and beyond it.

Russia is a country of bold ideas ­ a place where almost anything, good and bad, seems possible as long as there is political will in place.

Legal reform, however, requires an altogether different mindset: a slow and careful rewiring of a powerful and dangerous machine. And for as long as this machine continues crushing the people caught in its mechanisms, the process could not start soon enough.

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