Мои опасения полностью оправдались. Пришедший документ по своему содержанию представляет собой модифицированное положение о ДНД. Идеи о придании комфортности участию в охране правопорядка законопослушного гражданина и формулированию конкретных обязанностей перед ним государственных, в первую очередь правоохранительных, органов остались только в двух статьях.
Завершить эту статью, как и свое вступительное к работе семинара слово, мне хотелось бы следующим. В конце апреля в Москве под эгидой Совета Европы, его Юридического департамента, состоялся семинар, посвященный роли МВД в демократическом обществе. Меня попросили сделать на нем доклад по проблеме взаимоотношений полиции и населения.
В этом докладе я позволил себе сказать, что внимание к законопослушному гражданину является приоритетным для Нижегородской школы правоведов. Во всяком случае в отношении подавляющего большинства своих учеников я в этом уверен.
Я очень надеюсь, что именно из нашего города нашей многострадальной и, в то же время, бесшабашной страны далеко пойдет школа юристов, написавших на своем лозунге «защита обездоленного законопослушного гражданина».
Научный руководитель и энтузиаст семинара «Лицом к законопослушному гражданину», заслуженный деятель науки России, профессор В. Томин.
Relationship of the police and public in democratic societyWays of Mutual Confidence Strengthening and Cooperation Establishment
Pre-print of the Report at the International Seminar
“Police and Human Rights”
Instrument set and initial conditions
Problematic situation (current state)
Problem (methods of problematic situation change)
Determinants of the public or individual opinion on police
Technological recommendations
Law on public participation in maintenance of law and order
Reference on the problem
1. Instrument Set and Initial Conditions
1.1. As a set of instruments for research the scientific methods 12.00.13 (13.05.10) – (management in social and economic systems) have been used.
1.2. An adequate analysis of the police-public relationship is possible only taking into account the conditions of place and time.
There are certainly some general regularities of such relationship covering different times and countries. However it is at the level of the science ideology. At the technological level the police-public relations for example in Germany differ from those that are typical for the United Kingdom, Italy, the South-African Republic or Japan.
The attitude itself for one’s own service in police differs considerably in the Baltic Republics on the one hand and in Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan on the other hand. A Lithuanian or an Estonian are similar to an Athenian aristocrat. They would rather let a slave to arrest them than go to serve to the police (F. Engels). For an Uzbek and a Turkmen their service in the police is prestigious. As of the beginning of the nineties in the militia[510] of Riga and in whole Latvia the number of Russian-speaking militiamen at all levels, excluding the top-levels, was much greater than the number of the representatives of the title nation.
The recent change in this ratio has been caused by the involvement of the police of the Baltic Republics into the political game.
In Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan in spite of the multinational population the representatives of the title nation have prevailed among militiamen even before.
The object of my analysis is Russia. The national, religious and some other peculiarities of numerous population groups living on its vast territory make the relations concerned be different in Buryatia from those in Moscow, in Birobijan from those in Leningrad region. The present relations between the militia and the public differ considerably in their content and orientation from the relations between the same subjects at the end of the fifties and at the beginning of the sixties, at the second half of the eighties, especially in 1918, 1919 or in the twenties.
1.3. The conformity of the basic parameters of the relations between the militia and the public in Russia with the main European standards
Why do we mean only the European standards? We have missed the unique experience of eufunctional ties of the Chinese police and the public. We just do not have any reliable information about it. But Russia is, by the way, an Eurasian country both by its national and religious traditions.
At the technological level the modern Russian relations between the militia and the public are similar to the German police-public relations at the second half of the forties and fifties and to those in the USA in the twenties, in the thirties and in the forties.
In this respect the selection of experts for Russia is of great importance. Among others those specialists are required who know the said periods not just by hearsay. We have quite enough our own specialists who solve problems by simple logical spreading of a general idea to a concrete situation. And with the exclusion of newly ones the said specialists are more skilled than western specialists. This is due to a specific nature of the Soviet education which have not provided training for a narrow specialization.
For a number of years I have been reading with curiosity some publications signed by “Nikolas Arena”. And I always think what sphere he is expert in. After N. Viner “An expert is a person of experience”. And I begin to understand that Nikolas Arena is probably a person who distributes money.
Grantors and granters are very different. In the hands of many of them a grant (donation, endowment, subsidy, dotation) may turn to grand (American slang: thousand dollars, a large sum) and even to grunt (luncheon voucher).
The situation in the sixties, seventies and in the first half of the eighties conforms at the technological level to the modern European standards of the police and public relations to a far greater extent than the present relationship between the Russian militia and the public.
It is probably not just by chance (this is not an argument but an illustration) that when creating a TV program in Omsk I used the experience of the Second TV of BRD and it was BRD that at the end of the sixties asked my permit for translation of my book “Use of Mass Media in Combatting Crime”.
1.3.1. The connection between the democracy and the mutual confidence of the public and police is not simple.
The French searches displayed, for example, that Soviet and Russian schoolchildren of the period of 1990–1993 are more law-abiding than French children of their age.[511] But Soviet and Russian schoolchildren have been grown up in the epoch of the so-called totalitarianism.
In this connection I would like to cite the opinion of another lawyer: “…There appear more and more… evidences (in post-communist countries and also in the USA and Great Britain) of problematic relationship between democratic processes and the law”[512].
1.4. I have started to observe an actual interrelationship of the militia and the public since 1968. So I may judge on their dynamics not just from literary sources. It is important to accentuate that it is the public that forms the environment for functioning of the law protective bodies, and that it is a matter of great significance for the successful activity of the police how the first comer reacts to a crime or to an action of the police. Not specially organized or prepared public but a person that has happened to be in statu nascendi (in the scene of action).
1.5. The importance of the relations between the law-abiding public and the police (For the sake of which we undertake this analysis).
The normal relations between the public and the police are necessary evidences of a democratic society.
But the relations between the police and law-abiding citizens are of great importance not only just by themselves. If it were so, the police might go into their shell and deal only with infringers, with lawbreakers. However it cannot do it for the following two reasons. First, a part of its functions is intended to serve the public upon the whole. These are a passport service, security service, traffic control inspection etc.
Second, being engaged in a law-protective activity the police has to involve also citizens into it. Sometimes it is achieved even by the thread of enforcement. (A citizen is called to give testimony under the threat of criminal responsibility in case of the refusal to give such a testimony).
In this connection two aspects of significance of the relations between the police and public are formed.
First. The normal relations between the police and the public arouse the feeling of some comfort or safety in the latter.
Second. The normal relations between the police and the public can optimize the police activity and through it the activity of the total lawenforcement system.
By their content the relations between the police and the public have both an official and individual personified nature. The higher the level of the latter, the better the relations as a general rule.