Medvedev Promises Independence of the Legal System

This one comes from the FT:

“One of the key elements of our work in the next four years will be ensuring the independence of the legal system from the executive and legislative branches of power,” he said in a speech addressing business leaders gathered for an economic forum in Siberia. Mr Medvedev said freedom – both economic and personal – would be a cornerstone of his economic policy for the next four years as president, which he said would also focus on the four “Is” – “institutions, infrastructure, innovation and investment”. (…) But in a sign he could seek to pursue a more liberal economic strategy than Mr Putin, under whose watch the economy has undergone an enormous shift toward greater state control, Mr Medvedev called for a reduction of the number of state officials on the boards of Russia’s state controlled corporations. “I think there is no reason for the majority of state officials to sit on the boards of those firms. They should be replaced by truly independent directors, which the state would hire to implement its plans,” he said.

A strong sign that Medvedev means what he says about removing the bureaucrats from state-held firms would be if someone like Alexei Miller, rather than Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, took over the chairmanship of Gazprom. Getting the silovik-in-chief Igor Sechin away from Rosneft would also be quite the coup, literally.