Is Russia's new president serious about ending 'legal nihilism'?
Thursday, May 8, 2008; A22
SHORTLY AFTER being sworn in as Russian president yesterday, Dmitry Medvedev declared that "my most important task is to further develop civil and economic freedoms." Above all, said the 42-year-old former law professor, "we must achieve true respect for the law and end the legal nihilism that is seriously hindering modern development."
That was a remarkable statement under the circumstances. Mr. Medvedev, after all, owes his position to the "legal nihilism" of outgoing president Vladimir Putin, who grossly abused both the letter and the spirit of Russia's nominally democratic constitution to install a handpicked successor. Mr. Putin, who takes over the post of prime minister, accumulated a fortune estimated in the tens of billions while serving two terms as president. In recent weeks he has been twisting the law again to ensure that he will remain Russia's most potent leader.
Chances are that Mr. Medvedev's statement was no more creditable than Mr. Putin's own claim that the presidential transition was carried out "on the basis of strict observance of the laws and the principles of democracy." Still, it's not yet clear what the relationship between the new and old Russian presidents will be -- whether Mr. Medvedev will remain a puppet of Mr. Putin, or begin to assert his own agenda. For that reason, it's worth Western governments taking Mr. Medvedev at his word about his legalistic passion -- and suggesting some ways he might act on it.
To begin, Mr. Medvedev could be asked for action on the 14 unsolved murders of journalists during Mr. Putin's tenure -- such as that of Anna Politkovskaya, in whose case suspects have been identified but never tried. Britain should invite the new president to cooperate in pressing Scotland Yard's charges against a former KGB agent in the assassination of a Putin critic in London.
If that's too hard, Mr. Medvedev at least could end the use of the law as a weapon against opposition leaders, independent civic organizations and human rights groups -- not to mention Russian and foreign businesses whose assets are coveted by the Kremlin and its friends. Tax and environmental inspectors repeatedly found ways in the Putin years to shut down offices or force sales on concessionary terms; several intellectuals who criticized the government were imprisoned on bogus espionage charges. Russia's most successful business executive of the 1990s, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, still languishes in a Siberian prison long after his Yukos oil company was confiscated.
Above all, President Bush and other NATO leaders should ask Mr. Medvedev to begin respecting international law. In Mr. Putin's last months in the presidency, Russia repeatedly violated the sovereignty of its southern neighbor, Georgia, granting recognition to illegal separatist regimes in two of its provinces and dispatching troops to one of them in what has become a dangerous game of brinkmanship. As Mr. Medvedev takes office, Russia is veering toward open confrontation with the West and an entrenched autocracy at home. A shift toward respect for the law would be welcome, indeed.
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