字神帝國英語天地

今日主題：Russian politics-- Fear and loathing / 俄羅斯政治--恐慌與厭惡同在

康康精選GRE&GMAT會考的主題，堅持每天精讀一定會進步的哦!!
MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：喜歡的同學，幫忙推或按讚哦~~
http://xia2.kekenet.com/Sou…/2016/…/eco160721_3546218Ry2.mp3

只有音檔怎夠，聽不懂地方，不用怕，康康幫你準備好中英文稿了：

中英文稿：
Russian politics-- Fear and loathing
俄羅斯政治--恐慌與厭惡同在

How the Kremlin is using the law for political ends
克里姆林宮如何操縱法律以達政治目的

For generations of Russian leaders, the law has been a tool of state power, not a limit on its abuse. In recent months, as Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, and his advisers have navigated an unfamiliar political environment, they too have fallen back on a kind of nominal legalism, in which the law is less for protecting the citizenry than an instrument of power.
對於幾代俄羅斯領導人而言，法律已經成為他們攫取國家權力的工具，而不再是限制權力濫用的利器。最近幾個月以來，俄羅斯總統弗拉基米爾•普京及其顧問開創了一種不同的政治局面，從而回歸到了一種名義上的守法主義之路上。如此，法律與其說是用來保護民眾利益，不如說是一種權力工具。

As the Kremlin sees it, compared with uglier measures of neutralising dissent, the law is an “efficient and civilised tool” that allows for a certain “wiliness,” says Mikhail Krasnov of the Higher School of Economics. In practice, that means the law can be deployed selectively against political opponents, or laws can be drafted to solve immediate problems.
俄羅斯高等經濟學院教授米凱爾•克拉斯諾夫稱，在克里姆林宮看來，相比其他“更卑劣的‘和諧’手段而言，法律這種“有效而文明的工具”留有一定的“周旋”餘地。事實上，這就意味著當局可以選擇性地使用法律來打壓政敵，或者可以擬定相關法律解決迫在眉睫的問題。

On September 14th a majority in the Duma voted to strip Gennady Gudkov of his seat in parliament, after a committee found him in violation of a law that prevents deputies from profiting from private business while in office. Mr Gudkov, a deputy with the left-leaning Just Russia party, says he was targeted for being the most outspoken member of a small anti-Kremlin group of lawmakers. Moreover, his past as a KGB lieutenant colonel made him not just an opponent, but a traitor.
9月14日，杜馬多數票決議剝奪根納季•古德科夫的議員資格，因為某委員會裁定，古德科夫違反了俄羅斯禁止議員在職期間從私有企業牟利的法律。古德科夫是中左翼的公正俄羅斯党議員。他說，他之所以成為攻擊目標，是因為他是一小撮反對俄羅斯當局的立法者中最直言不諱的一員。此外，他曾是克格勃的一位陸軍中校，如此一來，他不僅被人視為政敵，還被當做叛徒。

The committee’s allegation may indeed be true (though other politicians attract no ire for living strangely well on modest salaries). But Mr Gudkov’s version of events rings true. His troubles began only when he started speaking at anti-Putin rallies and giving impassioned speeches in the Duma against Kremlin-favoured legislation. He says that his expulsion shows that not only “is it possible to distort the law as convenient” but that “it’s possible to go entirely beyond the law without consequence.”
委員會的指控也許的確沒錯（儘管其他官員薪資不高卻過得出奇滋潤，而且沒有招致不滿）但是古德科夫的說法聽起來也不無道理。他開始在反普京集會中發言，在議會上慷慨激昂地反對有利於當局的立法時，麻煩就找上門了。古德科夫稱，除名一事表明，當局不僅“有可能歪曲法律以圖便利”，還“有可能完全淩駕於法律之上而不用承擔後果”。

The past months have been a busy season for the Russian legal system. In August three women from a punk collective, Pussy Riot, were sentenced to two years each in prison for an anti-Putin stunt in a Moscow cathedral. In June a package of new repressive laws was voted into force by the Duma. It raised fines for unsanctioned demonstrations and required foreign-funded NGOs to register as “foreign agents” (the authorities have just told one of the main sources of such grants,America’s USAID aid agency, to cease operations). Other laws recriminalise libel and create a blacklist of (loosely defined) offensive websites.
過去幾個月，俄羅斯法律系統忙得不可開交。八月，造反貓咪樂隊（一朋克女子樂隊）因在莫斯科救世主大教堂進行反普京表演而被判兩年有期徒刑。六月，杜馬投票通過了一系列新的壓制性法律，提高了對未審批遊行的罰金，並要求外資非政府組織註冊為“外國機構”（當局還剛剛勒令此類資金主要來源之一——美國國際開發署在俄分支機搆停止活動）。其他法律還重新將誹謗定為犯罪，並將一些（寬泛定義上的）激進網站列入了黑名單。

Taken together, these new laws are not as likely to be consistently enforced as much as they are meant to intimidate. Above all, the goal is to put the opposition and its supporters in a state of permanent legal jeopardy.
總的來說，這些新規更多地是起威懾作用，而不一定會被一直執行下去。其最重要的目的是將反對派及其支持者置於一種持久性的法律困境之中。

The Russian legal code is a thicket of often contradictory rules and responsibilities. Ella Paneyakh of the Institution for the Rule of Law at the European University of St Petersburg says that owners of small and medium-sized businesses “cannot even keep track of the law, let alone decide whether to follow it.” That leaves them vulnerable to arbitrary predation by law-enforcement bodies.
俄羅斯的法律條文錯綜複雜，充滿了相互矛盾的條文和義務。聖彼德堡歐洲大學法治研究院的Ella Paneyakh稱，中小型企業主“甚至無法讀懂法律，更不用說決定是否會遵循它了”。這就讓他們對執法部門的專制執法沒有抵抗力。

This sense of opacity and impenetrability gives the authorities the upper hand. The overall impression, says Igor Kalyapin of the Committee Against Torture, is that the “law is the property of those of who enforce it, and written exclusively for them.” Mr Kalyapin, who defends victims of police abuse in Chechnya, is now the subject of a criminal probe for releasing information from an ongoing investigation, a little-used law that even the main police investigator in the relevant case says should not apply. Mr Kalyapin attributes his legal troubles to his organisation’s work in documenting abuses in Chechnya.
法律的不透明及晦澀使當局占了上風。聯合國禁止酷刑委員會主席Igor Kalyapin說，法律給人的整體印象是：“法律是為法律執行者專門撰寫的，歸他們所有”。Kalyapin為車臣員警濫用職權的受害者辯護，現在卻因洩露一項尚在進行的偵查的資訊而接受刑事調查。禁止洩露調查資訊是一條很少使用的法律，甚至連相關案件中的主要警方調查人員都認為其並不適用。Kalyapin認為，他身陷法律糾紛的原因在於他的組織記錄了員警在車臣濫用職權的行徑。

The danger in using the law to solve short-term political problems, say people inside the Kremlin as well as its critics, is that it risks creating a precedent. Legal sanctions, even when subjectively applied, can take on a momentum of their own. In the Duma, members of United Russia worry that their vote to expel Mr Gudkov might lead to a broader purge of Duma representatives who have commercial interests. For that reason, Mr Gudkov would have kept his seat if the vote had been secret, says a United Russia deputy. “There is a lot of fear,” he says. “A lot of people came to the Duma so as to protect their business.”
克里姆林宮內部人員及其評論員稱，利用法律解決眼前的政治問題存在樹先例的風險。法律制裁（一旦開了先例），便有可能一發不可收拾，即便施行者只是主觀為之。統一俄羅斯党的杜馬議員擔心，他們驅逐古德科夫的決議會引發一場更為廣泛的清除，導致其他從事商業活動的杜馬議員被除名。一位統一俄羅斯党議員稱，基於這個原因，如果投票是秘密進行的話，古德科夫還有可能保住自己的位子。“現在人人自危”，他說，“因為許多人進入議會就是為了保護自己的商業利益”。