Creating genuine independence for the judiciary is the single toughest challenge facing Russia, wrote The Times in an editorial yesterday. Excerpts: Before she died, Anna Politkovskaya was often besieged in her office by queues of bereaved Russians hoping she might investigate murders that police and the judicial system had ignored. That system is itself in the dock in Politkovskaya’s murder trial, which began yesterday in Moscow. There has been no more important test of Russia’s commitment to an independent judiciary since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The best that can be said of this trial is that it is happening and open to the public. Of the 41 other murders of journalists in post-Soviet Russia, most remain unsolved and many have received only the most desultory investigation: The power of corrupt officials and wealthy business figures to silence press criticism by force is matched by their power to shut down the due process that should follow. (President) Medvedev, a lawyer by training, now has an opportunity to make good his pledge to boost respect for the law. Like his predecessor, he maintains a pretense that the judiciary is independent of the Kremlin. But this does not mean that he should withhold comment on this case. On the contrary, he should make a public statement supporting the decision to open the Politkovskaya trial to the media. He should advocate long-term protection for its participants at taxpayers’ expense if they request it, and he should press for the police investigation to continue until Makhmudov, too, is brought to trial.
Creating genuine independence for the judiciary from the other branches of Russia’s government is the single toughest challenge facing its outnumbered reformers. It is also the most important. Without disinterested enforcement, no law has meaning.
