The newly elect Dmitry Medvedev has said a whale of the good and right things about public administration and developing our economy. If all those words were turned into sheets of paper it would be possible to cover the corridors of the presidential complex with it. And if it all were turned into bricks, it would be enough for construction another hospital within the frames of the national project for public health care.   

Of course, we realize that necessity for such a big quantity of good speaking and positive signals was partly caused with the shortcomings of the procedure in the course of which Dmitry Medvedev got his new post. The more we shall be getting used to peculiarities of the new system of power in Russia, the less will be the need in hypnotizing us with one’s good intentions.  

A skeptic would doubt a priori many declarations by Dmitry Medvedev, referring to the practices by the previous administration where Medvedev played one of the key roles. But we wouldn’t do that. It’s nice and easy to declare one’s adherence to freedom and not to non-freedom. It’s popular to support the small-sized business. It’s progressive to advocate for development of institutions and innovations. And it’s just a political decency to speak for establishing strict and fair legal order.    

The problem is not whether Mr. Medvedev really means what he says. Unfortunately, the problem is that all the above mentioned issues – up to innovations – lie beyond his competence. Due to some particularities of Russia’s development in the last decade, all those problems can only be solved within the frames of political and not bureaucratic reforms. 

The problem is that freedom – which is better than “non-freedom” – cannot be gifted like a cake wrapped up in a present-like way. And the legal order cannot be switched on or off like the light. And even innovation vector cannot be lent to the economy unless innovations become the key factor for enlarging the profit rate and extending the share of the market. That means, at the moment the other factors – like administrative support or access to the state rent – give much more advantage to the business than anything else.    

It is natural that all the problems Dmitry Medvedev speaks about have something in common. They have the common lead – that’s the sharing out of political power. Independence of justice and the strict legal rules are needed by those who are not able to protect their interests within the frames of the contemporary order. On the contrary, it’s not needed by the ruling elite possessing the whole range of the means and practices substituting the legal rules. That includes corrupted courts, prosecutor institutions, OMON, deputy seats or direct telephone of Surkov or Sechin. As of today, establishing of the right legal order is impossible to be done on the base of any single person’s decision, i.e. it cannot be a benevolent act. Our model of political power itself contains an obvious inner contradiction.  

One may formulate this reasoning even sharper. I reckon that the moment when the head of state – doesn’t matter if it will be the first or fifth, or whatever, president - found oneself on the dock, would be the milestone event in Russia’s transition to legal order. I’m not talking about particular persons and particular crimes. What I’m talking about is the systemic sign of the change of the situation. Only when all that will be possible politically, then the question of establishing the real legal order in Russia would grow into the stage of technical and bureaucratic reforms. And only then it would make sense to reason about raising the standards for selection of judges and for all other juridical routine.     

Looking closely at the system of the clan, corruption and enforcement relations making the frame of the contemporary Russian political system, it becomes clear that there is no maximalism in what I said above. It will become clear that there is no other way of struggling with the “juridical nihilism”, as attempting to struggle with it on the grass root level is equal to trying catching a wind with a butterfly net.   

The paradox is that this hypothetical president to appear before the court would do much more for making real legal order in Russia than any ruler delivering nice and right speeches about necessity of establishing of such an order and overcoming the “juridical nihilism”.    

It does not take any shocks or revolutions to make it real the situation where Russia would be able to move towards becoming the jural state. It takes very simple things – that’s freedom of the press and really elected and really functioning parliament. It’s them who are capable of providing the political opportunity where any Russian president could appear before the court. This means such a way of sharing out and distribution of political power where the strengthened institutions and independent justice become needed by all the players in the process, including the losing power hypothetical president. Otherwise, the topic is just used as a magic tambourine by another successor.