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Soviets Need Rule of Law for Democracy
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17159 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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12 / 1990 |
3,233 Words |
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Richard Thornburgh
Richard Thornburgh is attorney general of the United States. |
Whether or not the 28th Communist Party Congress in Moscow is, as some predict and more hope, a true precursor to the "withering away of the party," the extraordinary debate which is taking place in that forum parallels in important ways President Gorbachev's stated desire to create a "law-based state" - a Soviet Union founded on the rule of law.
Heritage analyst Leon Aron has identified the creation of "a government vested with authority and having enough legitimacy to administer the very bitter pill of radical economic reform … as the central and most urgent issue of Soviet politics today."
It is my view, in the context of recent exchanges between the Department of Justice and our Soviet counterparts, that the rule of law provides the only basis upon which such a government can eventuate from the upheaval under way in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe.
Our October 1989 trip to the Soviet Union - the very first by a sitting United States attorney general - occurred at the very beginning of the Supreme Soviet's effort at institutional reform and enabled us to open a historic, and continuing, dialogue on the rule of law and human rights.
It was remarkable experience. At the invitation of Soviet Minister of Justice Benjamin F. Yakovlev, we met for a week with Soviet leaders in the fields of law enforcement and the administration of justice - ministers, jurists, law students, even the chief of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov. Our agenda was a full one, devoted to topics central to what makes our democracy work: our Bill of Rights, our federal
... (1997 of 19403 Characters)
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