Paul
Goble
Staunton, May 23 – In recent years,
Russian officials have routinely made negative comments about ordinary people,
suggesting they and not the government are responsible for all their problems,
Dmitry Sarkisov says. “Sometimes it seems they are competing abut who can be
the most insulting.”
Until recently, the Lenta journalist
says, there was little or nothing an ordinary Russian could do in response
unless the remark was so outrageous that more senior officials felt the need to
transfer the official involved lest his words spark something that could
threaten the state itself (lenta.ru/articles/2020/05/23/obscene/).
Sarkisov cites numerous
cases in the last several years when officials made horrific remarks and
recounts the ways that many got away with nothing but a slap on the wrist if that.
But several recent cases give hope that the situation will change and officials
will have to be more careful or will face not only removal but major fines as
well.
The need for such legal arrangements
was highlighted two weeks ago when an official responded to Vladimir Putin’s
policy of providing money to families with children to help them get through
the crisis by saying online under an easily unmasked alias about ordinary
Russians that “the more they’re given, the more they want.”
People were outraged by such
callousness, and within 24 hours, the official lost his job – but only because
the media covered it and not because there was any legal requirement for the
bureaucrat to avoid such remarks – unlike in the case of anyone who made
similarly dismissive comments about government officials.
“Mid-level regional bureaucrats in
recent years with increasing frequency have demonstrated that ordinary people
for them are slaves” whose needs and wants must be respected, Sarkisov
says. Instead, they have acted as if the
two groups are separate species, one of which must be respected but the other
deserves nothing but contempt.
The journalist continues: “In
countries where elections work better than in Russia, such politicians and
officials certainly would pay with votes against them and lose their places in
the next elections. In the US, for example, even a sheriff is an elected
position, but Russia has not yet reached that level of development.”
But what Russian politicians and
officials have done is to introduce laws that make it an offense for the population
to criticize them, even though until very recently they’ve been completely
unwilling to see legislation pass that would impose similar restrictions on the
members of their own class.
Some politicians have proposed such
legislation over the last several years, but it didn’t go anywhere. Now, however, the ice may be breaking. In
December 2019, Vladimir Putin said that an individual who works for the
government must not display contempt for ordinary people. If he does, “there is
no place” for him among officials or politicians.
The day after the official said that
giving Russians anything is a mistake because they’ll only want more, Andrey
Turchak, secretary of the United Russia council and deputy speaker of the Federation
Council, and Aleksandr Khinshteyn, who heads the Duma committee on information
policy, introduced such a bill.
As written, it would impose fines of
100,000 to 150,000 rubles (1600 to 2400 US dollars) and disqualification from
service for a year for first offenses and more significant fines and two years disqualification
for repeated offenses. Such penalties
should give officials pause before speaking and equalize the debates between
them and ordinary people.
On the one hand, such a development
is welcome especially as it moves toward equalizing the speech rights of
officials and citizens. But on the other, it is troubling because it seeks to
solve with legal punishments that will be imposed by officials what should in
fact be resolved by unfettered debate and the actions of the democratic
process.
Because it may be the best that can
be hoped for in Putin’s anything but democratic system, it is a step forward;
but it is only one step forward and if misused as such measures almost
inevitably are in Russia, it may ultimately constitute two or more steps back
and become another weapon of repression in the hands of even more officials than
those making the remarks.
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