Grigory Pasko: How Much is Your Job Worth on the Corruption Market?

A few weeks ago, a much discussed report from a group of Russian human rights activists established that the volume of corruption in the country comprises 50% of GDP, finding that law enforcement and the judicial system are the institutions most affected by this bribery.

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As the researchers note, in the the positions themselves in judicial and law enforcement bodies are an object of purchase and sale, for which the seeker may shell out tens of thousands of dollars. The report stated that “getting a placement as an assistant to a procurator in one of the rayon procuracies can end up costing no less than $10,000. Job placement as an employee in one of the branches of the GIBDD [State Inspectorate for the Safety of Road Traffic] can end up costing no less than $50,000.”

A quote from the report:

1. Corruption entrepreneurs can be found in the leadership of operative subdivisions, as well as operatives in the main bodies (OBEP, FSB, FSKN), whose duties include oversight of the economic sphere or the struggle with organized crime. An activity in which the principal inclination is made on, so-called «roofing» of entrepreneurs, raiderism, brings an income, as a rule, of no less than $20,000 a month. The given group has tight and immediate contacts with crime and implements, so called, ‘dirty work’ for its leadership, being the organizer and principal recipient of dividends.2. Corruption entrepreneurs – procurators engage in ‘roofing’ of entrepreneurs, crime, as a rule, income in this sphere comprises no less than $10,000 a month.3. Corruption entrepreneurs – GIBDD inspectors, whose monthly income comprises from $5,000.4. Corruption entrepreneurs – interrogators – from $3,000.5. Corruption entrepreneurs – policemen responsible for a specific district – from $2,000, in so doing the principal source of income are illegal migrants.6. Corruption entrepreneurs – PPS from $1,000 on account of illicit trade and illicit advertisement.”

And, as I understand, the end too of Putin’s slogan when he was president about building in Russia a “rule-of-law state.”Why the end? Well, what else is needed for the end after the conclusion of the experts about how “the merger of crime and the law-enforcement organs bears an epidemic character?”Of course, some do not agree with the conclusions of the authors of the report. For example, Judge Valery Zorkin, who serves as chairman of the Constitutional Court of Russia.At a recent meeting with President Dmitry Medvedev, Zorkin said that “the assertions that have already become boring about corruption in the courts” are inappropriate, since “it (corruption) exists in Switzerland, it exists in Germany,” and this is no reason to reckon Russia among countries with a backward justice and a dependent court.Just like Zorkin, I too am not in agreement with the thesis about how we have a backward justice. How can something that does not exist be backward? We have a parody of justice, the appearance of justice, a phantom, an entourage, an exterior…The Zorkins are confident – the experts are slandering. Those who think like Zorkin no doubt deem that these experts conducted their so-called research with the dirty bourgeois money of the West and the CIA with the objective of undermining the image of our country on the international arena. In the meantime it is well known that all is not well with them, in the West. Of course, they no longer lynch minorities, but they are attempting to enslave the freedom-loving peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan and impose their bourgeois style of life on them.They, the ones who are bored, know well that far from all of our procurators-roofers get 10 thousand dollars of income a month. There are also those who get much less. And no doubt there are those who live on salary alone: of course, you’d have to search hard to find one of those, but he does exist, even if there is just one like him. And in general our procurators – are saintly people. About which various sources not infrequently bear witness, for example, this one….The source, it goes without saying, is hostile, slanderous, and boring already.