Opinion polls examining Ukrainians’ sentiments towards state institutions unanimously confirm the critical level of trust in Ukraine’s court system, an article in KW reads.The Razumkov Center think tank said that over the period of 2005 – 2011 the number of citizens completely supporting the activity of Ukrainian courts fell from 12.5% to 4.2.%, the number of citizens partially supporting them fell from 37% to 25.6% and the number of people not supporting their activity increased from 32% to 57.1%.
Last year’s Life in Transition Survey II public opinion poll conducted by the EBRD and the World Bank showed that only 11% of Ukrainians believed in the existence of a court system capable of protecting their rights from government abuse. This year the Rating Sociological Company published the results of its opinion poll according to which less than 10% of Ukrainians trust their courts. When there is no trust in the system corruption rears its ugly head. 40-60% of the people in Ukraine believe the level of bribery in the court system is high. Usually only the State Automobile Inspection outruns courts in such ratings.
The amorphous reaction of our society to lawlessness is the result of “pluralism of opinions in one head.” Technically the problem could be solved by reaching a public consensus: nobody pays anyone. In practice, it is impossible to reach such a consensus in contemporary Ukraine as there is no guarantee that everybody else will do the same, the article concludes sarcastically.
