Before there was a “Russia” as we know it today, Russia was better known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The USSR was a Marxist-Leninist state governed by a single party (Docherty, 1997, p. 85), and abided by a constitution known as the Brezhnev Constitution. This constitution was adopted in 1977 and was the third and last Soviet constitution before the fall of the USSR. The Brezhnev Constitution guaranteed a multitude of political and civil rights nearly identical to those guaranteed in the United States’ Bill of Rights. Articles 50 and 52 of the Brezhnev Constitution identified rights to the freedom of press, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion, and freedom of speech (USSR Const. art. 50 & 52). However, these “rights”
…show more content…
Boris Yeltsin, who was the first Democratically elected President of the newly minted Russian Federation, made it one his first priorities to to organize the 1993 Constitutional Conference. Yeltsin believed that, in order to prevent Russia’s new government from becoming totalitarian in the future, the new Russian constitution had to put in place strong democratic structures at the government level (Schmid, 2010, p. 431). The constitution that ended up being ratified was a profound departure from the Soviet Constitution that was ratified in 1977. For example, it completely put an end to the single-party socialist regime established in Article 6 of the USSR Constitution. Instead, Article 1 of the Russian Constitution asserted that the Russian Federation is “a democratic federative law-governed state with a republican form of government” (Russian Const. art. 1). The USSR also had no mechanism for a separation of powers in its constitution, but Article …show more content…
Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of Russia’s tendency to undermine human and political rights has to do with the Russian government’s abominable efforts to subvert the freedom of press. According to Reporters Without Borders (2017), Russia ranks 148 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index. This most likely has to do with the fact that an independent media is practically non-existent in Russia, and journalists there are frequently subject to being jailed or murdered. This is backed up by data provided by the Committee to Protect Journalists (2017) where they have documented the murder of over thirty-six journalists in Russia since 1992, and the retaliatory imprisonment of over 10 journalists since 2008. Russia is also quite renowned for its issues with corruption. It is widespread and infects nearly every aspect of life in Russia including, healthcare, business, law enforcement, etc. Experts on the subject believe the corruption is so bad that it has gone from being a problem in Russia to becoming a fully ingrained system. Milov, Nemtsov, Ryzhkov & Shorina (2011) outlined in their independent white-paper that in 2011 Russia’s annual turnover of corruption stood at an unbelievable $300 billion, noting: “This amount is comparable in size to Russia’s budget as a whole and represents 25% of the country’s GNP.” I believe there are many things Russia can do to reduce
Boris Yeltsin, who was the first Democratically elected President of the newly minted Russian Federation, made it one his first priorities to to organize the 1993 Constitutional Conference. Yeltsin believed that, in order to prevent Russia’s new government from becoming totalitarian in the future, the new Russian constitution had to put in place strong democratic structures at the government level (Schmid, 2010, p. 431). The constitution that ended up being ratified was a profound departure from the Soviet Constitution that was ratified in 1977. For example, it completely put an end to the single-party socialist regime established in Article 6 of the USSR Constitution. Instead, Article 1 of the Russian Constitution asserted that the Russian Federation is “a democratic federative law-governed state with a republican form of government” (Russian Const. art. 1). The USSR also had no mechanism for a separation of powers in its constitution, but Article …show more content…
Perhaps one of the most egregious examples of Russia’s tendency to undermine human and political rights has to do with the Russian government’s abominable efforts to subvert the freedom of press. According to Reporters Without Borders (2017), Russia ranks 148 out of 180 in the World Press Freedom Index. This most likely has to do with the fact that an independent media is practically non-existent in Russia, and journalists there are frequently subject to being jailed or murdered. This is backed up by data provided by the Committee to Protect Journalists (2017) where they have documented the murder of over thirty-six journalists in Russia since 1992, and the retaliatory imprisonment of over 10 journalists since 2008. Russia is also quite renowned for its issues with corruption. It is widespread and infects nearly every aspect of life in Russia including, healthcare, business, law enforcement, etc. Experts on the subject believe the corruption is so bad that it has gone from being a problem in Russia to becoming a fully ingrained system. Milov, Nemtsov, Ryzhkov & Shorina (2011) outlined in their independent white-paper that in 2011 Russia’s annual turnover of corruption stood at an unbelievable $300 billion, noting: “This amount is comparable in size to Russia’s budget as a whole and represents 25% of the country’s GNP.” I believe there are many things Russia can do to reduce