As I wrote in yesterday’s post, the new Russian “constitution” is a violation of the principles of Rule of Law. Only ashes remain. As we could see, Russia is now ranked as 94/128 countries with respect to Rule of Law. This deterioration of Rule of Law since Putin came to power have dire consequences for Russians.

Their rights to fair trials are gone. It is meaningless or even dangerous to appeal decisions made by the Russian authorities. And should the courts uphold the appeals or in other ways decide in favour of Russian individuals, there is always the possibility that Kremlin ignores that decision.

Russian citizens’ access to justice (left) and Russian government’s compliance with the judiciary (right) since Putin became president.

Source: Varieties of Democracy https://www.v-dem.net/en/ Note: Access to justice. The indicator ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates that access to justice is denied the citizens of a country and 1 where there are no obstacles. Compliance with judiciary. The indicator ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 indicates that the government never complies with courts’ decisions and 4 that it always does.

Darkness has fallen over Russia.