Paul
Goble
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Staunton, August 18 – Russian laws
often are so poorly drafted that key terms are left undefined, allowing the
authorities to bring charges against those who have not violated the original
purpose of the law, a problem compounded by the relatively restricted role of
precedent in the Russian judicial system.
Sometimes these shortcomings
appear to be intentional: if the laws were precisely drawn, the authorities would
have less flexibility in applying them. But regardless of whether that is the
case or not – and the evidence suggests that it sometimes is and sometimes
isn’t – this lack of definition and precision frequently leads to other
problems as well.
One of the most serious of these
involves “separatism” and “federalism.”
Separatism, as many scholars have noted, is often generated by attacks on federalism,
and attacks on federalism are justified by the threat of separatism. But
where one or both is left undefined, the situation can lurch from one extreme
to another, threatening the well-being of the country.
In
the current issue of “Regiony Rossii,” Anatoly Bednov, a journalist in
Astrakhan who specializes on regional issues, discusses this problem and
calls for “a precise definition” of separation in order that Russian can
escape from the vicious circle of separatism and anti-federalism (gosrf.ru/authornews/129/).
“While justly condemning separatism,”
he argues, “it is necessary in legal terms to protect society at the same
time from another political-ideological extreme. It is important to block any
anti-federalist propaganda including demands for the deconstruction of the
federal structure of our state as written in the Constitution by the
much-ballyhooed ‘gubernization.’”
Bednov’s article takes the form
of a critique of an analysis prepared by Nikolay Starikov who also called for
more precise definition of “separatism” (nstarikov.ru/blog/28219) but failed, according to Bednov, to
deal with definitional problems involving closely inter-related concept of “anti-federalism.”
Starikov’s call for a new law on
separatism is unexceptionable, Bednov says, “except for one thing.” He does
not call for a more precise definition of the term or recognize that its
current ambiguities allow the authorities to bring charges “against all and
sundry,” even against those who propose expanding the rights of federal
subjects or amalgamating them.
“We already know,” Bednov says,
“that the existing anti-extremist legislation at times is interpreted too
broadly. In order that this situation not be repeated, laws must define
precisely the limits of what is considered separatist ideology and activity
corresponding to it.” Otherwise there will be serious problems.
The main reason that unitarism
won’t work in Russia is “the multi-national, poly confessional and geographic
diversity” of the country “and also historical experience:
super-centralization did not save from collapse either the unitary Russian
Empire or the pseudo-federal Soviet Union.”
Petr Stolypinn
attempted to overcome the problems with the first, and Nikita Khrushchev,
with his sovnarkom system, tried to do the same with the second. But “a real
overcoming of it is possible only via real federalism.” And that means Russia
needs to define legally not only separatism but also anti-federalism.
“Having said A, one must say B,”
Bednov continues, recalling the Soviet anecdote: Which deviation from the
CPSU is more dangerous: the right or the left. “The correct answer,” of
course, was “both.”
Russian law, Bedov argues, must
ban “not only propaganda of separatism but also any anti-federalist
propaganda, including calls for doing away with the federal system written in
the Constitution by ‘gubernization’” or some other means.
The reason for this is that “calls
to liquidate the Federation and return to a unitary past will provoke
national separatists in the republics in just the same way that Russophobia
provokes Great Russian chauvinism and the latter in turn local chauvinisms,”
a vicious circle that can’t be escaped by addressing only one part of the
problem
If however when they define
separatism, the Arkhangelsk writer continues, Russia’s legislators also
define and ban “anti-federalist propaganda,” then “federalism becomes an
absolute value not subject to any doubt” in just the same way that “the
state-territorial unity of Russia” is beyond doubt at the present time.
“Those who
reject Russian Federation by calling for the elimination of the federation
offend not only peoples who have their own ethnic statehood within Russia but
also the Russian people in the name of which such people all too often speak
who have their own Federal subjects in the form of oblasts and krays.”
Bednov argues that
“the legal basis for separatism was liquidated with the adoption of the 1993
Constitution, in which the phrase, ‘the right of nations to
self-determination up to separation’ was let out, a phrase which served as
the legal basis for the collapse of the USSR.
A legal basis for unitarization of Russia never existed and does not
exist now.”
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