Since he became a judge in 1996 Mr Pashin, a dapper 37-year-old who looks more like a successful businessman than a judicial reformer, has been strongly criticised by other judges. He was sacked in 1998 but the decision was reversed by the Supreme Court on appeal.But in October the Moscow Qualification Collegium of Judges fired Mr Pashin again. Ironically he is being sacked under legislation he himself drafted for removing judges who were accused of serious crimes. His offences were twofold: He had written a paper about a conscientious objector called Dmitry Neverovsky, who was convicted of draft dodging in the Kaluga region. Mr Pashin said the court had violated procedural laws and had disregarded Neverovsky’s right to do civilian service as an alternative.His second offence was that he had taken part in a phone-in programme on Ekho Moskvy radio station when a woman called in asking desperately for help.

“She said she had awful problems and had lost all hope,” says Mr Pashin. “I said I could not advise her, but if she wanted to call me at my office she could do so and I gave her my telephone number over the air.” Mr Pashin’s colleagues decided this was “not fitting behaviour for a judge”.Mr Pashin is still an enthusiast for jury trials. He says juries are much more likely to bring in not guilty verdicts or take into account special circumstances They also reduce the opportunities for judicial corruption. This, he says, is not as bad as in the militia or police, but if you know the right lawyer you can usually get to a judge.”Many judges say privately that they favour jury trials because it makes them feel that they are real judges and not just a substitute for the prosecutor,” says Mr Pashin. But provincial governors oppose them because it limits their power and nobody lobbies for jury trials within the government.It is not only that the court system is biased towards the prosecution. Mr Pashin says it takes an absurdly long time for a case to come to court at all.

In civil cases people trying to bring a case against one of Russia’s rocky banks often have to wait so long that, even if they win, the bank has disappeared or its assets have been transferred elsewhere.On hearing of his second dismissal in two years Mr Pashin was reluctant to appeal to the Supreme Court for the second time. “I thought I would go into teaching and scholarly work,” he said. Since then he has had second thoughts and will now take his case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.. A car bomb exploded today in Chechnya’s second largest city, narrowly missing a pro-Moscow official known for her strong anti-rebel stance. A car bomb exploded today in Chechnya’s second largest city, narrowly missing a pro-Moscow official known for her strong anti-rebel stance.
Malika Gazimiyeva, administration head for the city of Gudermes, escaped with minor injuries, said an official in the pro-Moscow Chechen administration based in Gudermes.The explosives were packed in a parked car on a street leading to her office, and apparently detonated by remote control. Her driver and bodyguard were injured in the attack and taken to a hospital.Gazimiyeva is among a small group in Chechnya who ardently support Russia’s campaign to smash a rebel insurgency.While most of the population waffles on support for one or another rebel band, or for the independence movement generally, nearly all Chechens oppose the Russian bomb and artillery campaign that has killed and maimed civilians.Gazimiyeva is reported to have once said that Chechen women should be killed because they give birth to militants and has been the target of previous attacks.Along with skirmishes and ambushes on roads and in Chechnya’s mountains, rebels also have attacked officials of Moscow-backed administrations.Rebel attacks killed 12 Russian soldiers over the past 24 hours, the Gudermes official said. Another two Russian policemen were killed today in an ambush in the Urus-Martan district, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.In a separate incident, a soldier was found unconscious in the village of Borozoi with a cut on his chest in the shape of a crescent and star, symbols used by the Islamic militants.The soldier had wandered from his base the day before and doctors said he had apparently been knocked unconscious before the symbol was carved into him.Russian troops retaliated with artillery barrages at suspected rebel bases in the forests and on mountain slopes in the Urus-Martan, Nozhai-Yurt and Kurchaloi district of southern Chechnya.The military said two soldiers died and five were wounded in a firefight yesteday, which saw Russian soldiers pinned down near their armored personnel carrier for two hours waiting for reinforcements.The attack occurred in the center of the capital Grozny, a few minutes’ drive from Russia’s main military base in Chechnya at Khankala.

Initial military reports said five soldiers were wounded and none killed.Russian troops moved into Chechnya in September 1999 after rebels based there invaded neighboring Dagestan and after apartment building bombings that killed 300 people in Moscow and two other cities The government blamed the bombings on Chechen rebels.. A ten-year study by British and German researchers has revealed the long-lost history of one of the world’s most mysterious ancient civilisations. A ten-year study by British and German researchers has revealed the long-lost history of one of the world’s most mysterious ancient civilisations.
By using a series of hieroglyphic texts from the first millennium AD, Simon Martin, of the Institute of Archaeology in London, and Nikolai Grube, of the University of Bonn, have reconstructed the political history of the ancient Maya civilisation of Central America.It is the first time in the Americas that a detailed political history of an ancient civilisation has been reconstructed. The study suggests that the Maya were in some respects a New World equivalent of ancient Greece – with dozens of city states retaining their individual identity, but functioning politically under the hegemony of a handful of more powerful ones.Territorial empires did not exist on the Roman, Chinese or Persian model – but spheres of influence, control and patronage certainly did, and seem to have resembled Old World hegemonic systems such as ancient Greece and early Mesopotamia.Simon Martin believes the Maya reluctance to build empires derived from a religious obstacle. Each city state was an incarnation of a local god, soit would have been sacreligious for any one city state to absorb another. Absorption would have destroyed the divine power behind the absorbed state.