POST-TOTALITARIAN REGIMES AND HUMAN RIGHTS

The problems regarding human rights are quite specific in the post-communist space (including Georgia) and they differ from problems of communist period. There is neither an isolated state nor a government-controlled press characteristic to totalitarian regimes. On the surface, everything is in order and democratic standards seem to be observed. In fact, the organizations for human rights still have a lot of problems and they face numerous of obstacles in solving these problems. However, the forms of resistance to the organizations for human rights, who fight for settling these problems, have been changed.

The representatives of democratic countries find it difficult to understand problems of post-totalitarianism because they refer to the experience of their own countries or the communist regime. Unfortunately, Western experts often have a poor perception of the peculiarities of post-totalitarian countries; to understand these peculiarities, one should live in a post-totalitarian country and later carefully examine the problems connected with human rights.

In the countries of classical democracy, there is a pyramid with law at the top. This pyramid is based on two powerful elements ( authority and society. Let's imagine this pyramid:

According to this pyramid, an authority (state machinery) and a person (society) have equal rights towards law. A citizen, whose rights are violated, appeal to law. Though he does it with the help of state officials, he is sure that the court will not proceed with the authority's interests. Even if it happens, a citizen has levers to protect his/her rights: free press, television, social mentality, and above all, public opinion, which can have a great impact.

In the post-communist countries (I mean not only Georgia but other post-Communist countries, since I know the situation in other post-communist as well) the relations among the state (state machinery), person (society) and law have remained unchanged since the communist period. In particular, this pyramid looks quite different in the post-communist countries:

To tell the truth, law is not a supreme category here, it is only a weapon in the hands of the authority (state machinery) for oppressing a person (society). Such discourse will persist until social mentality is changed and as long as citizens apprehend violations of law by representatives of the state machinery as a natural event. In comparison with the communist period, much has been changed today, mainly because a democratic part of the society has more means of influencing public opinion, but this process is also opposed by the state machinery. We can bring Georgian television as an example. It is the most powerful instrument for influencing public opinion and it is fully monopolized by state machinery.

Last year Georgia adopted Constitution and laws, but they do not act by themselves - they should be implemented by concrete people. Practical application of new legislation comes across a great deal of difficulties in the post-totalitarian countries. With changing proprietors, struggling property and establishing new social classes much depends on the authority ruling over the country. In one case, the authority can be truly democratic and use social mentality for carrying out democratic reforms rather than manipulating it for political interests. The situation in such countries differs from the situation in countries ruled by less democratic authorities. For example, both the Czech Republic and Russia are post-communist countries, though they sustain different levels of democratic development. In the countries like Russia, state bodies oppose organizations protecting human rights; they cannot tolerate activists who work in this sphere. As a rule, the latter are defeated in this conflict. We shall again give an example of Russia, where the state machinery managed to defeat such an impressive person as Mr. Serge Kovalyov, who did not become a part of the state machinery and has remained a dissident.

For the present, Georgia is at the same level as Russia. There are all necessary pre-conditions here for systematic violations of human rights. In fact, one law acts for ordinary citizens and the other for representatives of the state machinery. As a rule, the fate of those who violate laws often depends upon concrete officials, instead of the law itself. Everybody speaks about human rights violations in Georgia (including the representatives of the authority), however, there exist quite different opinions about the reasons of these violations and the ways to solve them.

On the surface, it appears that democratic principles are observed. However, democracy and human rights protection will become real only if public opinion changes and modifies the situation. Unfortunately, it is not happening ( both public opinion and the real situation take separate places. In other words, the position of the state machinery towards public opinion is as following: "Write and read as much as you like, we shall act as we like," and they really do so. This bulletin gives a lot of concrete facts, which confirm it.