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| NEWS > 27 September 2007 |
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'Serious concerns' over police
SENIOR Metropolitan Police officer yesterday said there appeared to be "serious concerns" about how his force investigated a complaint that a young father was stabbed by a gang months before he was shot dead.
Peter Woodhams, 22, died near his home in Canning Town, London, just minutes after a confrontation with youths outside a parade of shops on 21 August.
He had complained to the police in January after being slashed with a knife, claiming he was being harassed by a gang. Deputy Commissioner Paul Stephenson told a committee meeting of the Metropolitan Police Authorit... Read more
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Transitions Online - Prague,Cz
27 September 2007
This article appeared in the above title/site.
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Russia: Zubkov’s Clean Crusade
The new premier wants to create an anti-corruption watchdog. But the means to fight graft already exist and are underutilized.
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia | It always happens at the same bend in the road. And there’s no way round it, as that road is the only route to St. Petersburg from the village where my friend hangs out in summer.
He knows in advance the traffic police will be lurking there. And their scale of charges is imprinted in his memory – 50 rubles for an outdated vehicle inspection certificate; 200 for exceeding the 40-kilometer speed limit; and 500 rubles if he’s left his car documents at home.
The alternative to such a bribe is a load of trouble, a much heavier fine, maybe court proceedings, a day truly ruined, even if he’s quite sure he was doing 38 at the time.
The police stop him about once a week. He even knows some of them by name, and has learned to put up with his money ending up in their pockets.
My friend has dark skin. He cuts his hair short and wears a few days of stubble. He could pass for a Chechen. As a result he often gets stopped in the street for identity checks during “anti-terrorist” crackdowns. If he’s left his ID at home he finds that a 500-ruble sweetener will soon see him on his way. He calls it a "foreigner tax."
“Real Chechens have to pay twice as much,” he once told me. He made that discovery at the police station one day when an unusually diligent police officer took him in to verify his ID.
In the fight against police corruption, using some of Russia's huge oil and gas revenues to begin paying state employees, including the police, a halfway decent wage might be no bad place to start.
ZUBKOV'S PROMISE
Viktor Zubkov, Russia’s newly appointed prime minister, has made a loud pledge to combat corruption. Fighting graft, he said, is to be a top priority for his cabinet, and for that reason he thinks a new purpose-built body must be created. For him the main issue seems to be whether the new watchdog should be part of the Federal Security Bureau or the government.
Over the years President Vladimir Putin has also made promises about fighting bribery and corruption. In 2006, Russia ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption and the Council of Europe’s Criminal Law Convention on Corruption. And the State Duma is now working on incorporating these measures into Russian legislation.
Even so there still is no real sign of a coherent anti-corruption policy. Despite ambitious declarations the problem in Russia is rife and still growing.
Worldwide perceptions of Russia in this regard have gone from bad to worse, according to the campaign group Transparency International. In its Corruption Perceptions Index released this week, Russia ranks as one of the most corrupt countries, tying for 143rd place of 180 nations ranked.
To combat corruption we need first to make the processes of government and administration much more transparent. And the laws we already have need to be implemented. At the moment in Russia, reality and the law seem to belong to totally separate worlds. Tougher laws on their own stand little chance of improving the situation. As every lawyer here will tell you, Russian laws may be tough, but they fall down due to slack and highly selective implementation.
It comes as no surprise for instance that no tax officials have been sentenced in connection with the Yukos case, despite the alleged scale of financial machinations. Once Russia's largest oil company, Yukos declared bankruptcy after the government ordered it to pay billions of rubles in unpaid taxes.
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