PrintDecember 8, 2009
Putin's Own Worst Enemy
Pound for political pound, Russian "prime minister" Vladimir Putin may well be the most powerful human being on this planet. Yet he may still be brought down by the inevitable corruption of power.Though he is no longer even officially "president" of the country, Putin still has the ability to hire and fire local officials like governors and mayors, to populate and depopulate the national parliament, to name the pontiff of the Orthodox Church, and to discharge justices of Russia's supreme court at will.He recently displayed this authority to truly terrifying effect.Unlike its U.S. counterpart, the Russian supreme court has an explicit legal mandate in the constitution itself to be its legal arbiter, which should mean that judicial independence in Russia is even more sacrosanct. Yet when Justice Vladimir Yaroslavtsev gave an interview to the Spanish daily El País and said that Russian security agencies control the country just as they did in Soviet times --...(Read Full Article)
