#7
Subject: Putin and the Law!!!
From: stoecke@american.edu (Sally W.
Stoecker)
Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001
Response to JRL lead editorial from Baltimore Sun, "Putin is Dictating, but not by the law" #5582, December 5, 2001
"Putin Creates a Dictatorship of the Law"
I was really saddened to see that the lead article printed in JRL today was one that is maliciously misleading! This is the kind of editorial that policy wonks love-give them a quotable quote and they will run with it…What could be better than "Putin is dictating, but not by the law." This is flatly wrong. President Putin used his position and political will to move a new criminal procedural code through the Duma last week that will now go to the Federation Council for approval. It is expected to pass and its passage will bring forth unprecedented legal reforms in Russia. The new procedural code will enable the 1993 Constitution, guaranteeing human rights, to be used. Without a new procedural code, the Constitution lacked the legal mechanisms for observance and enforcement. In addition, the new code moves power away from prosecutors to the judiciary and this will scale back the current abhorrent practice of throwing criminal suspects (many of whom are minors) into filthy, disease-ridden pretrial detention centers for months on end. Jury Trials will be implemented in all 89 Russian regions and not just the current nine. I hope you will run this rebuttal or "alternative view" tomorrow as the lead "editorial." If we are to inform the public about important Russian policies, we need to expose the truth!!!
Sally W. Stoecker, Ph.D.
Research Professor, TraCCC
American University
Phone: 202-885-3092
Fax: 202-885-1389
e-mail: stoecke@american.edu
website: www.american.edu/transcrime/
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