俄罗斯政治

　　Fear and loathing

　　恐慌与厌恶同在

　　How the Kremlin is using the law for political ends克里姆林宫如何操纵法律以达政治目的

　　For generations of Russian leaders, the law has been a tool of state power, not a limit on its abuse. In recent months, as Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, and his advisers have navigated an unfamiliar political environment, they too have fallen back on a kind of nominal legalism, in which the law is less for protecting the citizenry than an instrument of power.

　　对于几代俄罗斯领导人而言，法律已经成为他们攫取国家权力的工具，而不再是限制权力滥用的利器。最近几个月以来，俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京及其顾问开创了一种不同的政治局面，从而回归到了一种名义上的守法主义之路上。如此，法律与其说是用来保护民众利益，不如说是一种权力工具。

　　As the Kremlin sees it, compared with uglier measures of neutralising dissent, the law is an “efficient and civilised tool” that allows for a certain “wiliness,” says Mikhail Krasnov of the Higher School of Economics. In practice, that means the law can be deployed selectively against political opponents, or laws can be drafted to solve immediate problems.

　　俄罗斯高等经济学院教授米凯尔·克拉斯诺夫称，在克里姆林宫看来，相比其他“更卑劣的‘和谐’手段而言，法律这种“有效而文明的工具”留有一定的“周旋”余地。事实上，这就意味着当局可以选择性地使用法律来打压政敌，或者可以拟定相关法律解决迫在眉睫的问题。

　　On September 14th a majority in the Duma voted to strip Gennady Gudkov of his seat in parliament, after a committee found him in violation of a law that prevents deputies from profiting from private business while in office. Mr Gudkov, a deputy with the left-leaning Just Russia party, says he was targeted for being the most outspoken member of a small anti-Kremlin group of lawmakers. Moreover, his past as a KGB lieutenant colonel made him not just an opponent, but a traitor.

　　9月14日，杜马多数票决议剥夺根纳季·古德科夫的议员资格，因为某委员会裁定，古德科夫违反了俄罗斯禁止议员在职期间从私有企业牟利的法律。古德科夫是中左翼的公正俄罗斯党议员。他说，他之所以成为攻击目标，是因为他是一小撮反对俄罗斯当局的立法者中最直言不讳的一员。此外，他曾是克格勃的一位陆军中校，如此一来，他不仅被人视为政敌，还被当做叛徒。

　　The committee’s allegation may indeed be true (though other politicians attract no ire for living strangely well on modest salaries). But Mr Gudkov’s version of events rings true. His troubles began only when he started speaking at anti-Putin rallies and giving impassioned speeches in the Duma against Kremlin-favoured legislation. He says that his expulsion shows that not only “is it possible to distort the law as convenient” but that “it’s possible to go entirely beyond the law without consequence.”

　　委员会的指控也许的确没错（尽管其他官员薪资不高却过得出奇滋润，而且没有招致不满）但是古德科夫的说法听起来也不无道理。他开始在反普京集会中发言，在议会上慷慨激昂地反对有利于当局的立法时，麻烦就找上门了。古德科夫称，除名一事表明，当局不仅“有可能歪曲法律以图便利”，还“有可能完全凌驾于法律之上而不用承担后果”。

　　The past months have been a busy season for the Russian legal system. In August three women from a punk collective, Pussy Riot, were sentenced to two years each in prison for an anti-Putin stunt in a Moscow cathedral. In June a package of new repressive laws was voted into force by the Duma. It raised fines for unsanctioned demonstrations and required foreign-funded NGOs to register as “foreign agents” (the authorities have just told one of the main sources of such grants,America’s USAID aid agency, to cease operations). Other laws recriminalise libel and create a blacklist of (loosely defined) offensive websites.

　　过去几个月，俄罗斯法律系统忙得不可开交。八月，造反猫咪乐队（一朋克女子乐队）因在莫斯科救世主大教堂进行反普京表演而被判两年有期徒刑。六月，杜马投票通过了一系列新的压制性法律，提高了对未审批游行的罚金，并要求外资非政府组织注册为“外国机构”（当局还刚刚勒令此类资金主要来源之一——美国国际开发署在俄分支机构停止活动）。其他法律还重新将诽谤定为犯罪，并将一些（宽泛定义上的）激进网站列入了黑名单。

　　Taken together, these new laws are not as likely to be consistently enforced as much as they are meant to intimidate. Above all, the goal is to put the opposition and its supporters in a state of permanent legal jeopardy.

　　总的来说，这些新规更多地是起威慑作用，而不一定会被一直执行下去。其最重要的目的是将反对派及其支持者置于一种持久性的法律困境之中。

　　The Russian legal code is a thicket of often contradictory rules and responsibilities. Ella Paneyakh of the Institution for the Rule of Law at the European University of St Petersburg says that owners of small and medium-sized businesses “cannot even keep track of the law, let alone decide whether to follow it.” That leaves them vulnerable to arbitrary predation by law-enforcement bodies.

　　俄罗斯的法律条文错综复杂，充满了相互矛盾的条文和义务。圣彼得堡欧洲大学法治研究院的Ella Paneyakh称，中小型企业主“甚至无法读懂法律，更不用说决定是否会遵循它了”。这就让他们对执法部门的专制执法没有抵抗力。

　　This sense of opacity and impenetrability gives the authorities the upper hand. The overall impression, says Igor Kalyapin of the Committee Against Torture, is that the “law is the property of those of who enforce it, and written exclusively for them.” Mr Kalyapin, who defends victims of police abuse in Chechnya, is now the subject of a criminal probe for releasing information from an ongoing investigation, a little-used law that even the main police investigator in the relevant case says should not apply. Mr Kalyapin attributes his legal troubles to his organisation’s work in documenting abuses in Chechnya.

　　法律的不透明及晦涩使当局占了上风。联合国禁止酷刑委员会主席Igor Kalyapin说，法律给人的整体印象是：“法律是为法律执行者专门撰写的，归他们所有”。Kalyapin为车臣警察滥用职权的受害者辩护，现在却因泄露一项尚在进行的侦查的信息而接受刑事调查。禁止泄露调查信息是一条很少使用的法律，甚至连相关案件中的主要警方调查人员都认为其并不适用。Kalyapin认为，他身陷法律纠纷的原因在于他的组织记录了警察在车臣滥用职权的行径。

　　The danger in using the law to solve short-term political problems, say people inside the Kremlin as well as its critics, is that it risks creating a precedent. Legal sanctions, even when subjectively applied, can take on a momentum of their own. In the Duma, members of United Russia worry that their vote to expel Mr Gudkov might lead to a broader purge of Duma representatives who have commercial interests. For that reason, Mr Gudkov would have kept his seat if the vote had been secret, says a United Russia deputy. “There is a lot of fear,” he says. “A lot of people came to the Duma so as to protect their business.”

　　克里姆林宫内部人员及其评论员称，利用法律解决眼前的政治问题存在树先例的风险。法律制裁（一旦开了先例），便有可能一发不可收拾，即便施行者只是主观为之。统一俄罗斯党的杜马议员担心，他们驱逐古德科夫的决议会引发一场更为广泛的清除，导致其他从事商业活动的杜马议员被除名。一位统一俄罗斯党议员称，基于这个原因，如果投票是秘密进行的话，古德科夫还有可能保住自己的位子。“现在人人自危”，他说，“因为许多人进入议会就是为了保护自己的商业利益”。