No sense of justice

Jan Urban, a former dissident and journalist, said at Forum 2000 this week that in all his studies of countries in transition, the one and only thing he found that all people can unite around is a sense of justice. It's not economic reform that unites them, he said, but rather their craving for a sense of justice. Yet most of the post-Communist countries have utterly failed in this respect, he said. Twenty-three or twenty-four years later, he added, the CR has a corrupt judiciary and godfathers running the economy and politics. Today's headlines underline his remark. "Ivo Rittig is questioned for four hours, and then leaves without being charged," says Právo. "A deal with Křetínský threatens the Fico government," writes MFD. "Bakala's Detroit," adds Právo, referring to Ostrava. Successful Western countries might not even be all that much more just than the CR, but they are certainly better at instilling a sense of justice.