Russia
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The Hermitage Capital story. In 2007, 230 million were stolen from Russian tax authorities by a gang of murderers who obtained “sham” judgments from judges in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kazan. The fraud involved three subsidiaries of Hermitage that had paid taxes worth $230m. Soon after the police raid, these companies were fraudulently re-registered under new owners, who applied for, and immediately received, a tax rebate of $230m

[DOCUMENT: Hermitage Capital Video]

Lawyer Sergei Magnitsky found dead in his cell. Says Hermitage Capital’s Bill Browder: “Now, you have a bunch of law enforcement people who are essentially organised criminals with unlimited power to ruin lives, take property and do whatever they like and that's far worse than I have ever seen in Russia before. Russia is essentially a criminal state now.” From an unnamed senior banker in Mosow: “Russia's judicial system is totally compromised. It is strangling entrepreneurship. What happened is a clear impediment for investments coming in, not just for foreign investment but even for local ones”. (Catherine Belton: "Questions remain about Russia tax fraud", Financial Times). Note the point made by the senior banker: THE JUDICIAL SYSTEM STRANGLES ENTREPRENEURSHIP!!! Very much in line with Montesquieu-Smith. 

[DOCUMENT: “Justice for Sergei”. See also The Economist: “Sergei Magnitsky one year on”, November 2010]

[QUESTION: WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM THOSE WHO SUPPLY LOANABLE RESOURCES IN THE RUSSIAN CREDIT MARKET]

On Russia’s “legal nihilism”. Olga Kudeshkina: “Tackling Russia’s Legal Nihilism”, OD Russia, 11 March 2010: “The powers of a judge who does not agree to carry out requests may be prematurely terminated. In such a situation the conscientious judge finds himself open to pressure from within the judicial system and has no chance of defending his or her own rights. As a result, fewer conscientious judges remain in service; their colleagues fear to cross the court chairman and take decisions based on the law; and the dependence of judges on officials within the judicial system is intensified”.

[DISCUSSION: “Bonds and barter in the sauna”, Financial Times, March 28, 2010]. 

Russia & its political culture. Writing about present-day Russia, Margareta Mommsen and Angelika Nussberger uncover the remnants of Stalinist political culture in matters related to the separation of powers and judicial independence. In the USSR, judicial independence was disdained as bourgeois prejudice. See their book Das System Putin. Gelenkte Demokratie und politische Justiz in Rußland (Beck, 2007) [details].