Russian Court System So Corrupt It Can’t Be Reformed, Only Replaced, Krivenyuk Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, January 8 – The Russian judicial system is “not only one of the most corrupt mechanisms of the powers that be,” Anton Krivenyuk says. It has developed so many defense mechanisms that no reform is possible. The only positive step is to start over and subject its employees to thorough-going lustration.

            The Sovershenno Sekretno journalist says that the only thing that has ever worked against this system is media exposure; but now the courts are seeking defense against that: They want legislation that will ban any examination or criticism of what they are doing, an arrangement that would keep things just as they are (sovsekretno.ru/articles/korporatsiya-sudey/).

            Krivenyuk says that “the judicial system is the chief bastion of the law” in principle, “but in fact, the judicial corps today is the only branch of power which has complete indulgence for any manipulation of law and rights. And all attempts at reform at least so far have had only a tactical character.” 

            As a result, the courts themselves have become an ever greater threat to civil society, business and individuals caught up in their web.  They are restricting economic growth and “killing the investment climate” in Russia, the journalist continues.  That is especially true of small businesses which can’t afford to navigate the court system.

            Of course, Krivenyuk says, these problems in the judicial system are “only the tip of the iceberg of the problems in the interrelationship between state and society. The government has no system of reacting and processing public demands, real surveys, demands and requests for the reconsideration of this or that case.”

It only has something that imitates that, and that doesn’t “in practice” work.

All this must be changed, but there is at present no evidence that the powers that be are willing to make any. Therefore, anyone caught up in the judicial system as it currently exists must follow the simple rule of seeking publicity as often and as broadly as possible. “Otherwise, the corporation of the judges will trample on you.”