Georgia. Taming the Wild East

Can Georgia's revolutionaries bring in the rule of law?

FACING heavily armed criminals, separatists and a population that scorns everything from taxes to traffic laws, you would not normally sack half the police. But Georgia is not a normal country. And when Irakly Okruashvili, the interior minister, axed 12,000 officers, he was just beginning. Another 3,500 are to go; then half the staff in the prosecutor's office; then the regional courts. “Robbers, smugglers - everyone was here in this building,” says Mr Okruashvili.

Corruption and crime have raged through government, the judiciary, business and the lives of ordinary citizens for most of the past decade. The authorities lost control not only of bureaucratic details, but of chunks of the country: Abkhazia, Ajaria, South Ossetia and the Pankisi gorge, once said to be a haven for Chechen rebels. Accusations about Pankisi are resurfacing after Beslan, with Russian officials pointing fingers at “lawless” Georgia.

President Mikhail Saakashvili says nothing could be further from the truth. Not only is the Pankisi controlled, but the state itself has entered a new era. In six months, his youthful ministers have chased corruption, cracked down on smuggling and drawn up a radical new tax system meant to coax business back to legality. Control has been established over Ajaria, and there has been an attempt, so far unsuccessful, to regain it in South Ossetia. Georgia's people, who helped Mr Saakashvili take power peacefully last November, are happy: they long for order and want members of the former regime punished.

Critics, on the other hand, say the reality does not match the image. Nana Kakabadze, a civil-liberties campaigner, says detainees are still beaten or tortured by the police. Amnesty International agrees. Nor are the courts much help. Judges are ill-paid and they fear politicians. The new Supreme Court chairman, Kote Kemularia, is an ally of Mr Saakashvili's. “This is not rule of law, this is the absurd,” says Mrs Kakabadze.

Tinatin Khidasheli, of the Young Lawyers' Association, singles out the anti-corruption drive, in which rich allies of the old regime were detained and released only after paying huge fines. In many cases, the authorities probably lacked proof, she says, so they pressed the suspects to cough up millions of dollars. Alarm bells also sounded when an editor in Gori was arrested on drugs and arms charges. Defenders said he was framed for publishing things the local governor disliked. “In Gori, everybody thought the drugs were planted,” Mrs Khidasheli says.

Mr Saakashvili defends his tactics as a product of the times. But he also listens. After meeting lobbyists, he has reinstated the right of a group of them to inspect prisons on demand. In Mrs Khidasheli's words: “They're trying their best, but at times they try to overcome problems by illegal means.”

Article looks at attempts by the new Georgia government under President Mikhail Saakashvili to bring in a rule of law.