From the perspective of a political reflection of what a state is all about and what kind of constitutional framework or legal type of system it has, you then can begin to figure out how it's used. In using it, perhaps democratic principles will be reflected and perhaps they will not, because the legal system, the rule of law, can be as oppressive as it can be reflective and forgiving. I mean in the sense that you pay attention to what the law says, you practise what it says, and you're guided by the way the courts interpret it. In that sense, what comes first, a democratic form of government or a system of laws that will lead to more democratic forms of government? What we have is an international set of standards, and that's the door we all seem to be going through. Even in Canada we have problems sometimes with some of the international standards and norms. How do we implement them in a day-to-day practice?
I would suggest we work with the practitioners more and more. Practitioners are like us; they're people, and they're not all wanting to beat the other person down. I believe if you get people to see what is right, in terms of their situation, you will get some results that we're seeing now, in my view, in China and more respect for the accused person when he's arrested, less oppression on the part of the police. But you're going to have the usual exceptions. You're going to have crackdowns, because we have them, and we have them in different ways. I'm not equating us with China now in terms of what we do with religious groups or anything like that; that's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying sometimes your laws have to go a lot further than you want them to and what your constitutional restraints are. But you have your court to limit you, and that's where ours works, I say, perhaps better for us than for anybody else.