Rule of law in Russia: Politically inspired prosecutions must stop
A rebuke from the European Court of Human Rights will hardly have Vladimir
Putin, the Russian president, quaking in his boots. Yet this week's
verdict in the case of the exiled businessman Vladimir Gusinsky sends the
Kremlin an important reminder of the standards by which it will be measured
if it wants to be ranked among Europe democracies.
The timing could hardly be better, with legal proceedings gathering pace in
the Yukos affair, Mr Putin's latest and most significant assault on the
business oligarchs. The trial of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the company founder,
on fraud charges is due to start in a few weeks. The trial of Platon Lebedev,
his main associate, began yesterday.
Mr Gusinsky was arrested on fraud charges shortly after the president took
office. Proceedings were dropped after Mr Gusinsky promised to sell his media
empire to the state-controlled company Gazprom. The human rights court found
the authorities had abused Mr Gusinsky's rights by employing legal
instruments for commercial ends. The judges did not say so, but as Mr
Gusinsky's outlets often attacked Mr Putin, there was also clear
political purpose to the Kremlin's action.
The tactics employed in the Gusinsky affair have since become standard
practice under Mr Putin's increasingly authoritarian rule. The president
often speaks of enforcing the rule of law when dealing with the oligarchs.
But his idea of law is the efficient imposition of the Kremlin's
authority - not the defence of a set of rules to which all, including the
Kremlin, are subject.
The judges hearing the Khodorkovsky and Lebedev cases must now show true
independence. Any sign of official pressure on the courts would further
undermine faith in Russian justice. However, the real damage has already been
done in the arbitrary way that the Yukos two have been selected for attack.
They were clearly chosen because of Mr Khodorkovsky's willingness to
challenge Mr Putin politically.
Admittedly, in pursuing Mr Khodorkovsky, Mr Putin is challenging the
grotesquely unfair way in which a few rapacious businessmen seized control of
Russia's wealth in the 1990s. But it is wrong to tackle this grave
injustice by targeting some politically awkward individuals while allowing
others to keep their ill-gotten gains. A fairer approach would be to set out
first the standards by which the actions of the 1990s are to be judged, then
act on clearly established legal criteria.
Having easily won a second term, Mr Putin faces few effective critics at
home. But he does want Russia to be a respected member of the clubs
established by the world's leading democracies. So he should listen, at
least with one ear, to well-founded international criticism. Russia accepted
the authority of the European Court of Human Rights when it joined the
Council of Europe. So it must accept the court's judgment in the
Gusinsky affair - and recognise that its implications go far beyond the
treatment of one man.
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RUSSIA IN FACTS
