How much is a righteous court

Is there justice in Russia?

In the Russian public consciousness, the court occupies a very unusual place. Perhaps not a single state institution is subjected to such an acute criticism. According to conviction, which can be safely considered common, we have no justice, and the judiciary is fully controlled by the executive authority. We think so because it is more convenient for us.

Unfortunately, everything is more complicated. If justice simply did not exist in the country, it could be created "from scratch"; If the independence of the judges were not properly ensured, it could somehow be supplemented in addition. In fact, we have a very developed legislation, a dynamically developing judicial system, irremovability and material independence of judges, which, incidentally, receive very high salaries. It is easy to guess that in the near future the development of the system in all these parameters will continue. I will venture to predict that the effect of this will be zero.

The Russian judicial system is not at all some kind of corrupted parody of the judicial system of Western countries. This is a special institution that exists according to its internal laws and is very effective in the framework of these laws. Explain how this system works is easier on a specific example.

Sources of Russian law

In the recently published interview with Lenta.ru with former judges, the deputy chairman of the Volgograd Regional Court Sergey Zlobin tells how the authorities suspected him to receive a major bribe for the removal of arrest from a certain entrepreneur. After such a hint, the judge hastened to take the businessman again. Subsequently, Zlobin found out that one of the lower judges really paid earlier for a revision of the preventive measure, but this knowledge turned out to be useless, because, according to the narrator, "in the judicial system this is already an unacceptable thing." In other words, the hero of the story was not only not accused, but they could not officially accuse of receiving a bribe, he risked only that the immediate boss would look at him askance.

However, the judge had no doubt that he should focus in his activities not on the law, but on the opinion of the authorities, which is actually a source of law for him. It is characteristic that he did not see anything reprehensible in such a position at the time of the interview, that is, after leaving the judicial system.

This example, on the one hand, shows that the judges do not put the law at the forefront, on the other hand, he demonstrates the unreasonableness of the considerable opinion about the venal of judges. The judge will not sell to anyone. The author of the story about a bribe clearly condemns such a practice of selling court decisions "to the left", contrasting it with some "correct" sale. In the actions of the judge, clear logic and commitment to certain principles are traced. He does not answer before the law, but to the system that belongs to all the giblets. “The judge violates the law every day,” says S. Zlobin. “The same Code of Criminal Procedure, and sometimes the Criminal Code.” According to him, in such a situation, the authorities are not difficult to collect and any judge a "whole folder" of compromising materials.

In general, this system is similar to the regime of mild legal restrictions described by K.. However, Rogov, calling this regime “institutional trap”, is not held within the framework of this depersonalized characteristic and, as a result, describes the order of “soft legal restrictions” as something if not planted by the regime, at least emanating from it. As a result, the concept wins in popularity, but significantly loses exactly. Automatic attribution of any manifestations of evil in the country of the evil will of her government is a disease that destroys our entire socio-political thought in the root, making it a piquant smelling, but, alas, unsuitable for use.

The system of mild legal restrictions implies the existence of a beneficiary, receiving in the form of a privilege the release from actions of the obligatory law for the rest. The belief in the existence of such a beneficiary is part of the myth popular in Russia about the existence of certain public strata in the country (officials, “new Russians”, Jews, Caucasians - to emphasize), who seemed to be “possible”, while nothing is nothing. Moreover, the impossibility of complete compliance with the law in Russian conditions is a tool for restraining elites, and not ordinary citizens, as the Rogov model suggests. In undemocratic systems, a person can rise upstairs only on the conditions of complete submission by higher hierarchical ladder. With each step of this staircase, control becomes stronger, and the danger increases. The whole world history proves that the risk of losing its head increases as it approaches the highest government, and not vice versa.

Simply put, no soft restriction system exists, but there is a certain whole system of unwritten rules in force in the state. At the same time, no one deliberately deformed the official legal system in Russia, it simply has never been a “worker”, remaining unless a speculative ideal. The regulator of social relations always had unwritten rules, a kind of “concept”, which, however, should not be confused with the system of concepts of the criminal world.

Separate judicial sentences may look as if they were not passed on these state "concepts", but by law. However, this is just an illusion arising from convergent development of systems. Thus, prison concepts are punished and theft, and murder, and perjury is no less effective than the Criminal Code, however, “concepts” are neither a form of state law, nor even imitation of it. If the Moscow City Court was released by Samutsevich, then not because the law demanded that, but because the “concepts” demanded that this, by which state power and bureaucracy live. In this case, the decision made by the “concepts” almost coincided with the decision, which should have been made by right, but it was the incompleteness of this coincidence that is of interest to our topic. Two years conditionally for the unfinished act of hooliganism - this is practically a pardon from the point of view of the Kremlin "concepts", but too explicit overkill from the point of view of law. The gap between real and hypothetical verdicts clearly shows that we still have two different legal systems.

Of course, these state “concepts” have not been recorded anywhere, but Russian unwritten right cannot be considered legally optional addition to the right of the written by analogy with ius non Scriptum . The unwritten right has been truly obligatory in Russia, and the lack of written fixation is not an annoying omission for him, but a fundamental circumstance, a system-forming factor. Since the Russian state “concepts” are not recorded anywhere, approval from the leadership is the only sanction for the official.

The official must constantly monitor the reaction of the authorities. For example, in the mentioned interview with former judges, respondents emphasize that the authorities rarely convey direct instructions about sentences, usually subordinates themselves try to find out the will of the authorities through "consultations". In Russia, not only an official should behave in this way, but any person who enters into contact with the state: a businessman, the leader of a scientific or creative team, which is one way or another dependent on the favor of the authorities, etc. A constant gaze upstairs, constant readiness to catch the slightest signal from above - this is a drive belt of our state mechanism.

The decision of the Khamovniki Court in the Pussy Riot case is a great illustration of how the feedback in such a model works. Strictly and sincerely punished, “slapped” the term, but without unnecessary cruelty - a “two -legged” . “A trifle!” The colonel said, “two hussars are injured, and one on the spot.” The Tolstoy colonel, thinking about the report to the prince, somehow understands that this “trifle” of him is a shot in a “ten”, a cherry on a cake. We cannot know for sure, but there is no doubt that the prince was delighted with a “trifle” just like Putin’s “two -shaped”, and that the “two -legged” was aimed at Putin’s report in the same way as the “trifle” on the prince. Such things must be felt, and this is perhaps the only one of the skills that we did not have to be seized.

Between London and Beijing

It may seem that such a system -oriented will of public response is characteristic not only for Russia, but for all undemocratic societies. The similarity is so great that sometimes it’s even difficult to understand which country is in question. “The country is ruled from behind the curtains, behind closed doors, from a building without address and phone ... As a publisher, I was doing business with officials who listened to people in one of the buildings of our building. They always talked as if a monster was sitting in the next room, which is not called by name,” Mark Kitto writes in an article addressed to the British reader “You will never become a Chinese”.

However, do not exaggerate the significance of such parallels. The specificity of the Russian state-legal model is not in the model itself, but in the features of our attitude to it. Since we live, figuratively speaking, simultaneously in Britain and in China, it is difficult for us to completely accept this form of dialogue with the authorities. That for the British is exotic, and for the Chinese - everyday life, then for us is a harsh necessity, at the same time mundane and exotic, familiar and terrifying. Unlike the Chinese, we cannot help but dream of a rejection of such a system, unlike the British - we cannot decide to go beyond its framework.

Changing the legal model current in Russia is extremely difficult, if possible. The hierarchical staircase not only does not provide for the opportunity to take a step to the side, but also makes each of the rising along it independently control the correctness of their steps. So the most “narrow” place of authoritarianism is overcome - the lack of initiative from below. The constant need to track the signals that go from above allows you to fully use the lower activity and direct it to ensure the stability of the system. Such a system of the system guarantees it from the danger of origin in its bowels of the “contingent of a very high sample”, from which V. Nayshul intended to recruit personnel for the Institute of Judge-Kniazia.

Forced monitoring of the "nizami" changeable will of leadership becomes an important factor in ensuring the stability of the system. As a result, power and society are equally responsible for the existence of a vicious model (although, strictly speaking, the zones of their responsibility are different). On the one hand, no matter how much qualitative changes it accumulates in society, they cannot be implemented under Putin, on the other hand, not Putin is the main reason that these changes occur so slowly (if at all).

It is guaranteed to change the system only by violent method, using shock therapy, as was done in the economy. The problem is that the bourgeois revolution in the 90s occurred with us only by a third: in the economic plane, without affecting either public or political. This situation is fraught with numerous institutional disorder, however, its change requires a very great effort from society. Any person can buy a judge, but in all of Russia, it is likely that the funds for the purchase of a normally working judicial system are lacking. It cannot be purchased without spending, without tearing something away from itself, without acting some important principles. The righteous court is still not affordable for us, and I have no confidence that the Russian society will be ready to pay the required price in the near future.