"Justice of the Rus" by Ivan Bilibin - Wikipedia Media CommonsI was surprised by former British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind's simplistic picture of "The Rule of Law" - or not, as the case may be - in Russia and China yesterday. Rifkind compared Russia unfavourably to China in the context of this week's judgement in Moscow on Mikhail Khodorkovsky, when the treatment of the 2010 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, Liu Xiabo, surely suggests that the governments of both countries are equally unwilling to accept political dissent and prepared to imprison those who challenge the system. Moreover, as Russia's onetime richest oligarch, Khodorkovsky's business conduct does seem open to question, whereas Liu Xiabo's only crime has been to question the conduct of the state.
Rifkind's unfavourable portrait of the Russian legal system may also have something to do with his own professional connections. Some may remember an excellent Channel 4 Dispatches programme on 30 November 2009 which "examines the relationships between Russia's richest men and Britain's political elite." This was a fine piece of investigative journalism which showed just how much British politicians are, to put it bluntly, "in the pocket" of Russian businessmen, and particularly those who have made a home in "Londongrad". My own impression is that unlike "The Life and Times of Alexandr Orlov"*, Russian politics are "a not so simples story", notwithstanding their presentation as such by Western politicians and media.
* A Simples Life
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