The ABC of traditional values: Justice

Konstantin Malofeev: The next series of our 'ABC of traditional values' is dedicated to the letter 'C': justice [Editor's note: in Russian, 'justice' is spravedlivost', where the 's' is a 'c', in Cyrillic справедливость].

Justice is a very important word for the Russian people. Perhaps, even the key word. In the days of the World Assembly of the Russian People, when His Holiness the Patriarch sought a definition of what the Soviet period brought to the treasury of our history, of our thinking, the key word was 'justice'. Indeed, there was justice in the Soviet period, and it is because of it that people today warmly remember those years. Yes, there were many faults, but there was much more justice than before the revolution, and even more than today.

The word 'justice' is also very important for a legislator. The law must be just and, consequently, so must the punishment. The balance of interests in the law must be fair. The law should be one for all. Let us recall the origin of this maxim. It dates back to the laws of King Hammurabi of Babylon. King Hammurabi had a law. King Hammurabi was just. For the law is above all things, just as the king is above all things, and since the king is the only lawgiver and judge, all are equal before him. Rich and poor, famous and unknown, old and young. This is where the phrase about the justice of the law comes from, that the law is one for all. This justice is very important for the Russian, monarchist in his basic consciousness.

By the way, the tsar can be harsh, severe, but above all he must be just. On whom did the Russian people compose the most songs, proverbs, anecdotes and historical legends? On Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. They cannot in any way be called mythical tsars, but in the eyes of the people they were just. Justice is a characteristic of the tsar, and justice now appears in our Fundamentals of State Policy as a traditional value - a tribute to the Russian monarchical conscience.

This shows that we expect justice from law. As well as from public policy. We will not accept the mathematically precise and calibrated principle of 'an eye for an eye', but we will accept a solution based on the principle of justice. We grew up on it, we built on it. We should reject the liberal legislation of the 1990s, which was a carbon copy of American legislation. These laws were written by the Americans for the countries liberated from communism - for Eastern Europe, for us. They brought us colonial legislation. Where everything favours the rich, everything favours corporations, especially foreign corporations.

We want justice and it must be present in our public policies of the future. This is an absolute shift in the liberal paradigm. The word 'justice' as a traditional value is extremely important. It is not for nothing that Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin uses it so often in his speeches.

Archpriest Andrei Tkachev: I am looking for biblical associations with this theme. In general, in the Slavic Bible, the word 'justice' corresponds to the word 'truth'. As the Book of Deuteronomy says, one must seek it. "Truth, seek righteousness". This word is repeated twice and the scribes say that where the word is repeated twice, the greatest emphasis should be placed: 'Truth, seek righteousness'. In every relationship seek righteousness.

There is a vertical relationship, with God. There is repentance, mercy and other things, it is the source of grace. There is a horizontal relationship, where the person interacts with the other person. Here the main principle is 'seeking the truth'. This applies to the young, the old, the rich and the poor. Almost all prophets cite judicial injustice as one of the main causes of the fall and collapse of states. "The judge judges by bribes, and the nobles express the evil desires of their souls and pervert the matter" (Micah 6:12). It is a kind of cliché: the Lord punishes precisely for this.

By the way, I fully agree that the Soviet period appealed to the hearts of contemporaries precisely because the principle of justice was implemented as much as possible. Perhaps this happened for the first time in the long history of Russia. Therefore, justice, particularly in the courts, should be considered a factor of national security. As something without which the state loses its meaning and becomes worthy of punishment, and inevitable, sudden, overwhelming.

Alexander Dugin: There is an interesting precedent in Russian history: the writings of Ivan Peresvetov, at the time of Ivan the Terrible, in which he argued on this issue. He, on behalf of Peter, voivode of Moldavia, discusses the reasons for the end of the Byzantine Empire. And he asks him:

- Was there faith in the Byzantine Empire?

- Yes.

- The right faith?

- Yes, the right one, orthodox Christianity.

- Was there truth?

- But there was no truth.

Then, as Ivan Peresvetov writes, the governor of Moldavia Peter wept.

If there is no truth, there is nothing. This is a very Russian rendering of the deeper meaning of truth as justice. If there is wealth, prosperity, progress, development in society, but no justice, i.e. no truth, then there is nothing. And then Ivan Peresvetov asks: how did the Turks win if their faith was wrong and that of the Greeks was right? The answer is that the Turks had more truth.

The same principle applies to the Soviet period. There, atheism prevailed, materialism was a wrong belief, absolutely false, but there was justice. This is, in my opinion, the key to the Soviet period. Even in our society, therefore, justice is the key. And indeed, the most important aspect of our state policy.

All our modern legislation, as already mentioned, was adapted to economic freedoms under Western influence and justice was completely lacking. In our society, let's be honest, there is little or no justice; suddenly a traditional value is declared. It is like touching the most important string of our people for centuries. If there is no justice, then let there be nothing, a Russian sometimes thinks.

Justice is a common thread of our identity, of our aspiration. We do not want uniformity, we want justice. We want justice, we want the talented to get what they deserve. We want the poor to be pitied. We want those seeking redress not to run into an endless amount of bureaucratic hurdles. So that there is no corruption, no fraud, no lying. After all, people often experience lies, including those of screens or politicians, as something very painful.

Injustice is not only bad when we are its victims. A Russian person suffers when injustice is done to a totally different, distant, unknown person. It hurts anyway. That is, the Russian does not want to live without truth. If we affirm that justice is a traditional value, and we intend to defend it, and we affirm it as our guide, we must take it very seriously. It means to be or not to be Russia. To be or not to be our society, our state.

K.M.: It is the first traditional Russian value and it is really a key, the basis of our code. As it is fashionable to say today, it is 'genetically programmed'. Regardless of what we call the place where our historical memory and identity is preserved, the word 'justice' will be at the forefront. Because our first two documents, unlike today, were about just that. Thus, our first piece of legislation was called Russian Truth.

A.D.: That is, Russian justice.

K.M.: Our first literary work, written by Metropolitan Hilarion of Kiev, was entitled The Word on Law and Grace. What did it say? That the law has withered away and grace has arisen throughout the world. Because the law was not needed, it was stale and unimportant, grace was needed. And grace is divine justice. There are other historical allusions. That law is a Khazar Khaganate and grace is a flourishing Empire of New Rome. Not the Empire, which has already fallen, but the one that was in bloom and in which there was divine truth. And not the arid dogmatic pettifogy, as in the Khazar kaganate. It is important that law is much less than grace. The Russian people have always had a subordinate attitude towards the law. Because truth is always more important and this justice based on truth was already in our earliest deeds, writings, the earliest works of our literature. It was present from the very beginning. Russian man came into the world with this word. And if it is not respected, it means that the Russian tradition has been lost in this country.

A.T.: I think we are coming to another important topic. In a broad sense - that not a cook can run a state. That not everyone can be a doctor or mathematician and not everyone can be a judge. There is a certain set of sacred professions that have very high moral standards. An officer must be prepared to die for his country. A judge must be incorruptible. A priest must love God and people. A teacher is one who, like a pelican, feeds the blood of his pupils' hearts, and so on. For example, in the Great Jewish Sanhedrin, none of the judges (of which there were 71) were childless. In fact, according to the Jewish conception of life, those who do not have children are cruel and a person holding the highest judicial office should look upon the accused as children.

K.M.: And what do we see today in the European Union? They feed that bloody war to other people's children and they don't give a damn.

A.T.: Yes, it is a kingdom of childless officials like Macron. And there are many of them. In general, when Moses chose judges according to God's command, the Lord told him who to choose, why and what they should do. He said: there is a judgement of God. Thou shalt not distinguish between persons in the judgment, thou shalt hear both the small and the great; thou shalt not fear the face of man, for the judgment is the work of God. You shall not forgive the poor in their distress" (Leviticus 19:15). There is a whole list of biblical moral requirements for the person of the judge. Something that the judges of a bygone era did not know at all. I believe the time has come to raise this issue. That of the judge is not an easy profession. It is a sacred figure compared to any other person doing menial jobs.

K.M.: Because it bears the imprint of royalty, because the function of a judge is the function of the king, but a judge is much more difficult than the king. Because there are people above him and there is no one above the tsar, and justice, as a traditional value, imposes a much greater responsibility on the judiciary. It shows that the judge performs a kind of sacred mission. And the question of how judges become judges is extremely important from the point of view of justice. Because in the end the state manifests its justice there, in the courts.

It was the letter 'C' - justice.

Translation by Lorenzo Maria Pacini