For several years now I’ve had to make repeated trips, back and forth, on the same road in Vladimir Oblast.  Over the years the road has gone from lousy to perilously unnavigable. Deep ruts, craters, obstacles, potholes, and huge puddles of uncertain depth…

However the last time I drove this road, something new had appeared. Do you think they fixed the road?  Of course you don’t!  No, they put up new signs posting a lowered speed limit. The speed is indicated at 60 km per hour, although you can easily go 90 there. More precisely, you could easily go 90 there if not for the ruts and potholes.

It occurs to me that this is how many problems are solved in Russia. They can’t find the resources to repair a road, but they can put up a bunch of fancy new signs.  There isn’t enough infrastructure investment to make hydroelectric dams safe, as it is cheaper to just pay the survivors of any accident. They can’t seem to establish rule of law, but no reforms are ever made on the public prosecutors.  They can’t prove the guilt of the supposed terrorists or faux-spies they catch – but they can eliminate jury trials.

Thus our law professor President Medvedev decided recently at a meeting in Stavropol after the bombing in Nazran that this proposed law to ban jury trials should be expedited and passed without delay. Human rights advocates were dismayed, but nobody else gave a damn. Like other instances of apathy, no one cares because a) this has not yet affected them personally; and b) they already know anyway that our courts – with juries or without – will always issue whatever kangaroo-verdict the power indicates.