How an effective judicial system has changed countries. And Russian features.
Imagine a situation where a medieval feudal lord with almost absolute power in his fief commits a grave and unjust act. And there is no way to ask for help. Of course, under pain of torment and death, people who are lower in the rigid hierarchy can complain, for example, to the monarch. But if the feudal lord is loyal and useful to the monarch will turn a blind eye to almost any injustice, cruelty and sins. And if such unfair decisions are made by the monarch himself? Everything depends too much on the personality of the monarch. Of course, if the monarch is absolutely terrible, then sooner or later he will be deposed and lords will put on the throne another one. But during such a period of time, many troubles will occur.
Add to the same situation a corrupt parliament consisting mainly of nobles. We get that the absolute monarch can no longer do what he wants. And if it reaches the parliament that one of the feudal lords has overdid it in a bad way, then measures are also likely to be taken. But the parliament itself may well make decisions that are unfavorable for the people. The system is still ‘raw’, not ‘well done’. There are nominally courts, as in an absolute monarchy, but the courts make decisions at the behest of the top.
Then, as a result of the development of civil society and political competition, the courts become more independent, as well as the parliament, as well as the government. Classic separation of powers. And the court is quite logically able to make objective decisions. The mechanisms of the state system are being debugged. We have a modern society. A person without fear can sue on absolutely any issue.
Simply put, the influence of political competition on the development of the judicial system is as follows. Various opposing powers were forced to turn to a third party to resolve disputes in a civilized manner. So as not to continue vendettas and endless internal splits.
But when all power is concentrated in the hands of one political force, which prefers underhand games for competition, rather than open public mechanisms. When such a system within itself is only important to maintain the status quo, then this system does not need independent courts.
At the same time, contradictions and discontent accumulate within the system. Ultimately, either there is a new wave of intra-system politicians who decide that it is necessary to liberalize society. Or a revolution begins. And in each case, everything can end up in even more chaos and adversity than it was before.
That is why Western countries support institutional democracy. Which, of course, is not the power of the people. But it has many arbitration and election mechanisms. Which act as checks and balances. At the same time, they are open, legally approved and look fair in the eyes of the people. This does not mean that the whole system is fair. Therefore, there are often protracted court cases where corporations or authorities try to crush the “little man”. But there are many examples and well-established practice, when through public opinion, courts and elections, citizens were able to change the situation. This mostly applies to Western countries.
In Russia, the situation is somewhat different. According to the laws, everything is so. But in reality, there are many distortions that Russia has not been able to overcome since the collapse of the USSR. However, public opinion is also very important, but it is much more difficult to raise the resonance, and the results of the resonance may be much less significant than citizens would like. And civil society itself is poorly developed and poorly organized to address its own issues when they arise. Also, many people do not believe that they can influence anything at all.
In order for the state system to be long-term sustainable and the economy to develop, the system must be based on the institutions of power, government institutions. Which can only be created by the tops. At the same time, the institutions of power should not only be legalized, but also logical and attractive.
Russia has a lot of positive and historically traditional features. Including quick adaptation to external and internal changes. Russia cannot create a sufficiently attractive image to be envied by the whole world in a good way! The West, including Asian countries that economically or sociologically belong to Western culture, such as South Korea in the late period, Japan, were able to create such an image. And this statement is especially true for the United States. In Russia, for many centuries, strong authoritarian or even absolute power ended in prolonged stagnation, turmoil, and collapse. And a new rebirth. Russia has repeatedly tried to create an institutional system. But each time it ended in failure for a variety of reasons. This is already a suspiciously natural trend, but it’s there.
Ultimately, any institutions of power are crushed by underhand games under the line of the “party”, this is a hybrid scheme for the development of capitalism and democracy. A step forward from the one-party system of the USSR, in fact, totalitarian democracy. But this is not a strong enough model for sustainable development.
Due to the weakness of the judicial system, it is impossible to guarantee property rights. It is impossible to prevent illegal takeovers of enterprises. Tax and judicial legislation has too many interpretations. The rules of the game are constantly changing, often introduced ill-conceived and hasty innovations. In such circumstances, there are too many administrative barriers, too many tax claims. There is no favorable environment for growing private companies. There is no certainty that any citizen or organization can defend its legal rights through the courts.
And Russia has already had the experience of mindless liberalization, which only led to a deterioration of the situation.
That is why it is necessary to start the gradual development of the judicial system as the basis of the future society. We need an action plan not for the five-year plan, but for the next 50 years.
It is equally important for Western countries, especially the United States in the post-2020 election situation, to maintain healthy political competition and rely on the work of the courts and civil society. Because any country in just a few iterations in a short period of time can move from a transparent and more or less fair system to a closed system only for the elite, but with a beautiful facade.
