Rule of Law

In commenting on the Pussy Riot “witchtrial” in Moscow, I broke my general rule not to comment on ongoing events. My blood boiled, however, as I read the live coverage yesterday of the judge’s justification of the two-year sentence she inflicted on the band’s young members for their brief act of defiance in a Moscow church earlier this year. “Conspiracy driven by hatred of religion” indeed! Judges (and priests) in so many of the countries in which I have lived in the past 22 years are so illiterate and craven that they probably cannot even begin to understand the meaning of civil disobedience (see the late 1990s book - Why Angels Fall).

Amidst all the rhetoric in the past 2 decades about democracy one thing is clear. Without the semblance of “rule of law” it is meaningless. That means a system in which the judiciary owes no favours to the political executive. And Russia and China have made it clear that such a system is not for them. I was, two years ago, tempted to China to head up a project which purported to advise the authorities on how to bring such a system into existence (along with lots of other fashionable things such as performance management). After 6 weeks I could see what a nonsense it was – and got out.

The only bright light here in Romania is the independent spirit being shown by prosecutors and judges – one of the probable reasons for the high-handed actions being taken by the new Prime Minister. Hopefully the genie will not go back in the bottle.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, European governments tear up what was left of “rule of law”. The UK, for example, is tearing up the Vienna Convention of 1961 which has allowed people to take refuge in foreign Embassies. This is an excerpt from an ex-British Ambassador’s post on the matter -

The UK government has decided – after immense pressure from the Obama administration – to enter the Ecuadorean Embassy and seize Julian Assange. This will be, beyond any argument, a blatant breach of the Vienna Convention of 1961, to which the UK is one of the original parties and which encodes the centuries – arguably millennia – of practice which have enabled diplomatic relations to function. The Vienna Convention is the most subscribed single international treaty in the world.
The provisions of the Vienna Convention on the status of diplomatic premises are expressed in deliberately absolute terms. There is no modification or qualification elsewhere in the treaty.

Article 22 - 

1.The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.

2.The receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity.

3.The premises of the mission, their furnishings and other property thereon and the means of transport of the mission shall be immune from search, requisition, attachment or execution. 

Not even the Chinese government tried to enter the US Embassy to arrest the Chinese dissident Chen Guangchen. Even during the decades of the Cold War, defectors or dissidents were never seized from each other’s embassies. This terrible breach of international law will result in British Embassies being subject to raids and harassment worldwide.The British Government bases its argument on domestic British legislation. But the domestic legislation of a country cannot counter its obligations in international law, unless it chooses to withdraw from them. If the government does not wish to follow the obligations imposed on it by the Vienna Convention, it has the right to resile from it – which would leave British diplomats with no protection worldwide.

A European Tour

An absolutely brilliant travel blog which I’ve missed for the past couple of years as Merlin and Rebecca have traipsed around Europe – spending a couple of weeks in each country and posting superb photos of places and food, with recipes thrown in. They have only 6 of their 50 countries left to visit (if, that is you count UK as one – it is really 4). They were in Romania in June and have nice posts about the wooden churches of Maramures; a communist prison; and Romania’s national drink Tuica

Fighting for freedom

Some courageous and stirring words from the three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot currently being tried in Russia for their brief (and uninvited) performance in a Moscow Cathedral and who delivered closing arguments on Wednesday in a case seen as a key test of the Russian president's desire to crackdown on dissent. Let me reproduce the story almost in full - 

"This is a trial of the whole government system of Russia, which so likes to show its harshness toward the individual, its indifference to his honour and dignity," Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, one of the trio on trial said in an impassioned statement. "If this political system throws itself against three girls … it shows this political system is afraid of truth."
The judge set 17 August as the day she would deliver a verdict against the women, charged with hooliganism motivated by religious hatred following an anti-Putin performance in a Moscow cathedral.
Prosecutors have asked for a three-year sentence, arguing that the women sought to insult all of Russian Orthodoxy and denying they were carrying out a political protest.
"Even though we are behind bars, we are freer than those people," Tolokonnikova said, looking at the prosecution from inside the glass cage where she and her two bandmates, Maria Alyokhina and Yekaterina Samutsevich, have spent the nine-day trial. "We can say what we want, while they can only say what political censorship allows."I am not scared of you," Alyokhina (24) told the court. "I'm not scared of lies and fiction, or the badly formed deception that is the verdict of this so-called court. Because my words will live, thanks to openness. When thousands of people will read and watch this, this freedom will grow with every caring person who listens to us in this country." Each woman ended her closing statement to loud applause from the Russian journalists sitting in the courtroom.

There are some aspects of this case I don't like - their performance was childishly offensive in its location and content; and the western media (and Madonna) fail to explore the question of how such pranks would have been treated in the west. But the fact remains that the cosying up of the Russian Orthodox church to Putin is sickening; noone else seemed to have the guts to challenge it; and the girls' words are inspiring. 

Novels and music

Have been indulging myself in past week – eg reading three John le Carre novels in quick succession – A Small Town in Germany (1968); The Second Pilgrim (1991); and The Looking Glass War (1965). His portrayal of Embassy life in the first two is cutting; and the dialogues on the compromises such people make rise occasionally to Shakespearean levels. Corporate power looms large in the middle book – and the conclusions of all three books, unusually for such thrillers, give idealists little hope. I’ve come late to le Carre and am hooked. He is a great wordsmith; crafts great atmosphere; and, by virtue of his focus on moral dilemmas, can reasonably claim to be one of the great political novelists.  

Pity he can’t be persuaded to write a novel based on Romanian political realities! Presumably someone will soon write a novel focused on the recent work of prosecutors here which, having put one ex-Prime Minister and a Minister of Agriculture into prison, now have another ex-Minister and current MEP in their sights 

A great Romanian pianist died at the weekend – at the tragically young age of 33 - Mihaela Ursuleasa

She represented Romania’s great cultural tradition whose musical side was celebrated recently in a Sarah in Romania post 

Not just the well-known Enescu but composers such as Porumbescu (here and here); Martian Neagra, Dinicu  and Constantinescu to mention a handful. And these are just some of the composers! Then throw in the performers eg The Balinescu quartet eg their wine’s so good and their Life and Death. Hopefully you can hear the YouTube music - for the moment I have no sound!

What a pity that their political class has dragged the country's reputation down!

And I have just learned that Gore Vidal has died - at age 86. I've only read a couple of his novels but it was his increasingly acerbic essays on American politics which had me rolling in the aisles - particularly his mock State of the Union addresses.

State Capture

I returned from Sofia last Thursday (with many litres of white Bulgarian wine) and am now back in the mountains – silent witness to the latest events of the pantomime which passes for politics here in Romania.

Only 46 percent of voters apparently cast their ballots in Sunday’s referendum called after the Romanian parliament suspended Basescu in early July on accusations that he had overstepped his power. Given the outdated nature of the electoral register, this is an astonishingly high percentage for such a contentious, quickly-called and inconveniently-timed referendum and suggest to me the ballot-stuffing of which this government has proved itself highly capable.
88 percent of those who did bother to vote favoured Basescu's ejection, but the president had asked his followers to boycott the referendum.

On Monday, just hours after the country's Central Election Bureau announced that voter turnout had not been sufficient to make results of the referendum valid, Basescu went on the attack. Those who "organized this failed coup," he said, "should be held responsible before the state institutions."

Prime Minister Victor Ponta promptly responded by demanding that the president resign. "He will probably stay in the presidential palace, will have cars, villas and some profiteers around him who will continue to advise and praise him," Ponta said on Monday. "But for the Romanian people he stopped being a leader last night."

The Romanian Academic Society is one of the few bodies in this country which tries to offer analysis rather than emotional diatribes – and I missed its typically balanced paper which puts the recent antics in the detailed context of legislative and political events and court decisions in Romania over the past 2-3 years. The paper draws attention to the scale of parliamentarian cross-dressing (MPs changing parties during the course of a parliament) and argues that 

the reason for this bitter fighting and the high political migration in Romania is one and the same: the high stakes of state capture in an environment with major corruption opportunities. 

The paper even-handedly points to the corruption of Basescu colleagues which has been unearthed recently – undermining the argument that this has been, in the phrase of one German newspaper, a case of white knights versus black knights

A system in which the suspended President’s daughter; acting President’s wife and Prime Minister’s wife are all (from different parties) Members of the European Parliament indicates just what a self-serving political class we have here. Another RAS commentary gives more detail on the political aspects of the RomanianConstitutional Court.

And a Transition Online article puts the Romanian judicial situation in the wider context of Central Europe. 

Firm action from the EC

With the Danube and mid Balkan towns having hit 42 degrees on Sunday, we edged nervously out of the Bucharest suburbs at 07.30 Monday. But the forecasts had assured us of more acceptable temperatures - and the drive to Sofia was in fact a delight. The Bulgarian roads from Russe to Sofia are like the old RN French roads – narrow but straight – and offer very relaxed conditions (if you know where to watch for the cops). 

And Sofia welcomed us six hours later with a great rose wine and meal. Who can ask for more?

Every day since dawns coolly – with the narrow streets and trees offering great cycling conditions until mid afternoon when we disappear into the Rodina Hotel pool and exercises.

In our absence the EC has acted, as Tom Gallagher argues here, with commendable firmness toward its wayward child and issued yesterday an appropriate judgement, the technical detail of which can be seen here 

The Romanian President will still lose the 29 July vote – and it is highly unlikely that the complex package of nationalistic outrage (“we obey only Romanians”) and admissions of guilt and remorse by the Prime Minister and acting President will in fact translate into anything significant thereafter. 

Most of the western commentators have taken Basescu’s side – mainly because of the sheer crudity and stupidity of the tactics used in the Ponta power grab (Iliescu,  Nastase and even Basescu were so much more clever). Basescu is credited by Westerners with being the real reformer and certainly is the one person who has pursued judicial reform with real zeal. But to those who excuse Basescu’s breaches of constitutionality (he ruled for several years, for example, on emergency ordinances while having a parliamentary majority) I simply reply that I have still to see an article (in English) which can convince me (judicial reform apart) that he has in the past 8 years actually been pursuing a coherent reform agenda. 

He seems to me just a bull in a china shop – who loves the sound of his own bellow.  

A leftist website gives, amazingly, a more objective perspective. 
And an article in Der Spiegel gives some useful background on the political party set-up -

Ponta's three-party alliance, called the Social Liberal Union, is populated by a worrying number of prominent politicians and businesspeople who are suspected of corruption, abuse of office or crime. Interim President Antonescu's National Liberal Party, for example, provides a political home to the oil magnate and billionaire Dinu Patriciu, who has successfully withstood years of investigations into allegedly corrupt privatization deals. Head of the insignificant Conservative Party, Dan Voiculescu, is a former Securitate employee who was instrumental in helping ex-Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu acquire hard currency. Now one of the richest people in the country, he owns the influential television broadcasters Antena1 and Antena3.
And then there is the Social Democratic Party (PSD) of Prime Minister Victor Ponta. The party has its origins in the days following the toppling of Ceausescu in December 1989. It rapidly became a collection of former Securitate and communist party elites and is seen by many in Romania as the ultimate symbol of a corrupt oligarchy.
Ponta's political mentor, former Prime Minister and PSD head Adrian Nastase, for example, is an icon of political corruption. On June 20, he was sentenced to two years behind bars for illegal campaign and party financing practices. It was the first time in two decades that a politician of his caliber was sent to jail. In an attempt to avoid jail time, Nastase last month acted out an elaborate suicide attempt -- which merely delayed his sentence by a few days. He is now in jail.

A 'Duplicitous Scoundrel'Nastase's sentencing, however, was the ultimate warning shot fired across the bow of Romania's corrupt elite. If someone at the level of Nastase can be thrown in jail, then it can happen to anybody. Indeed, observers believe that his sentencing is the primary motivation for the power struggle currently engaged in by Ponta and Basescu. "They are doing all they can to resist an independent judiciary," says the lawyer Laura Stefan. "They would rather that Romania was in a kind of gray area outside of the European Union."

Taking distance

I can see that some of my recent readers are more interested in painting than politics – and that my blog masthead does clearly state that, unlike most blogs, this one doesn’t “give instant opinions on current events”.
So let me explain why, in the past week, I have been commenting on the ongoing crisis in this country where I have residence and a mountain home.

Simply that I decided in 2007 – after 8 years in Central Asia – that it was time to return to Central/Eastern Europe and to see -

• how its governance system was developing – ie both the administrative system which has been the focus of my work in various countries over the past 20 years  and the wider political system
•  what lessons this held for the various tools international bodies have been trying to develop over this period for other “transition” countries eg in “neighbourhood countries”

I was lucky on my return from Central Asia in that, within a few months, I became Team Leader of a project in Bulgaria focused on training local actors in the implementation of the European Acquis. It proved to be a challenging reinsertion to Europe – not least because of the combination of Bulgarian and Italian cultures (the latter being the main contractor). But I survived – and enjoyed the experience – and Bulgaria. That allowed me to refine the critique I had been working up for some time about EC Technical Assistance.

My next project in 2009 was a not dissimilar one in Romania – but I could sustain the controlling and internecine Romanian bureaucratic culture for only a month before I resigned in disgust and protest. I was happy to have another Bulgarian project for the past 18 months and to divide my time between Sofia and the house in the Carpathian mountains as I pursued more of a cultural agenda.

Frankly the political antics in both countries didn’t interest me – a political animal if ever there was one as I had given 20 years of my life to regional politics in Scotland. But both countries have been pursuing a neo-liberal agenda – whatever their political rhetoric and labels may occasionally say. And, having spent some time with younger political aspirants in the mid 1990s in Romania, it was very clear they were being groomed (by American advisers) simply in the skills of political marketing – not of policy substance. Here is one of the best takes on the situation.  

One technical question I now have is the extent to which the semi-Presidential system of Romania is now contributing to the Romanian problems. They are a highly argumentative race – and such a system is doomed to impasse (let alone highly emotional conflict) in the absence of a powerful leader (such as Iliescu) who can informally control everything – despite the minimal powers the role actually gives. Basescu managed (with a sick psyche) to do this for some years but, in the end, political forces and public patience just ran out. 

What, I wonder, are the implications for the country’s future constitutional settlement? 

Sadly the country lacks the civil society to organise the sort of constitutional process Scotland developed in the 1980s and 1990s.

I’m driving tomorrow to the heat of Bucharest – and then on to Sofia for a week. Bulgaria is now performing much more positively than Romania - reflected in its financial ratings.