This is a famous line from a Shakespearean play. I even know
a few lawyers, most of them in Washington, who wear nifty T-shirts with this
written on them.
In
Ukraine, though, I can only pity them. No one need kill lawyers here. The
system is doing it for them.
The
other day, I was talking to a friend who happens to be a lawyer. He said, “When
I taught law back in 1992-3, I remember asking my students, which they were
planning to do. To get a government job, or to get a job in private business.
All but two raised their hands for private business.”
A
couple of years ago, he went back into teaching. “When I asked my students the
same question, all but two raised their hands for the government job. ‘What’s
happened,’ I asked them? Nobody said anything. Then finally one guy, a kind of
insolent dude, drawled: “Well, you know… corruption is eternal.”
This
brought to mind the story another lawyer friend told me a not long ago. We were
talking about the difficulty of doing things legally here and she began to tell
me the story of her first experience practicing law.
“When
I first started as a lawyer, I had a job with one of the ministries. I had a
lot to learn, and it wasn’t long before I got my first taste.
“Our
office had received a skarha,
a formal complaint from an accountant that her director had violated a number
of regulations. The letter detailed the violations and they were pretty
serious.
“My
boss called me in and said, ‘I want you to go down to Uman and look into these
accusations. Do you understand your task?’ ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘I have to go
through all their operations and check whether what the accountant says is
true.’ ‘Go for it,’ said my boss.
“So
I went down to Uman and began investigating. Sure enough, I found evidence that
every one of the accountants accusations were true. This was my first real
assignment, so I was careful to note every detail of the evidence in my report.
I went back to Kyiv feeling happy that I had done my job properly.
“The
next morning, my boss called me in. ‘This is your report on the Uman office?’
‘Yes.’ ‘I see that you found evidence that the director did all these things
that the accountant claimed.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, feeling pleased with myself.
“‘But
what about this?” asked my boss. He proceeded to describe an illegal
transaction not mentioned in the complaint. ‘Are you sure this director didn’t
also do this?’ ‘Well, no, I’m not.’ ‘Then go back there and investigate a
little more.’
“So
I took the train back to Uman and began digging around some more. Sure enough,
the director had done these things as well. I put together a new report and
brought it into my boss, feeling even more pleased with myself.
“‘So
you discovered that he did that as well?’ ‘Yes, he did.’ ‘But what about this?’
(My boss described another illegal operation.) ‘Did you not check into whether
he might have done this as well?’ ‘No, I didn’t.’ ‘Well, what are you waiting
for? Get down there and look into it.’
“Feeling
a little surprised, I went down to Uman again. Sure enough, there was plenty of
evidence that the director had done this illegal operation. How did my boss
know about all this wrongdoing? I gathered together all the evidence, put it
into a thoroughly damning report and presented it.
“‘Fine,
you got even more evidence of wrongdoing. But did you consider that he’s
probably done this as well?’ (My boss described yet another misdemeanor.) ‘What
do we pay you for? Get down there and find out.’
“Feeling
a little put out, I went down to Uman a fourth time. Sure enough, there was
plenty of evidence pinning even more misdeeds on the director. I gathered
together all the evidence, put it minute detail in a ten-page report and
presented it to my boss.
“‘So
you got evidence of that as well. But he’s probably done this as well.’ (My
boss described yet another violation.) ‘Look, you don’t seem to be thinking
much. This time, you’re going to have to pay your own travel expenses.’
“Sitting
in a barren hotel room in Uman, I got to thinking. What was really going on? At
last, it began to dawn on me. I did my research, then I went back to Kyiv and
wrote up a bland little report saying not much of anything.
“The
next day my boss called me in. He was smiling. ‘Now I see you understand your
job. Let me tell you one thing, young lady. Everybody breaks the law, every
day. That’s just the way it is. But
if you toe the line, nobody cares. When you step out of line, that’s when
someone’s going to use it against you.'
“I
waited, sensing there was more to come. 'Now, when someone complains formally,
like this accountant, it usually means they know what’s been going on and
they’re doing it themselves. So, go down there and investigate the accountant.'
“I
soon found out that the accountant was renovating her house, using thousands of
hryvnia of building materials and so on. On a salary of about 400 hryvnia a
month. When I started asking her about that, she understood she had lost. She
withdrew her complaint.”
And
that’s how it is in Ukraine. God have mercy on the lawyers. •
No comments:
Post a Comment