On a January night in 1998, top-level Georgian diplomat Gueorgui Makharadze slammed his Ford Taurus into a line of cars waiting at a stoplight on Connecticut Avenue just blocks from Dupont Circle, killing a 16-year-old Maryland girl. Makharadze, who was driving drunk, initially claimed diplomatic immunity from arrest. But after a nationwide uproar and pressure from the American government, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze agreed to waive his immunity. Makharadze was prosecuted in an American court and sentenced to a term in an American prison. Georgia did the right thing, and justice was served.
In October of that same year, 23-year-old Aleksandr Kashin climbed into a gypsy cab in Vladivostok, Russia. Moments later, Douglas B. Kent, Consul General for the United States in Vladivostok at the time, crashed his sport-utility vehicle into the back of the cab in one of the city’s busiest intersections, paralyzing Kashin from the chest down. According to John Gallagher, one of Kashin’s American lawyers, six individual witnesses each claimed Kent was smiling and joking giddily after the accident. A police inspector signed a statement saying Kent smelled of liquor and appeared intoxicated.
Like Makharadze, Kent immediately claimed diplomatic immunity. With a strong criminal case against him, the Russian government requested on three occasions that the United States waive Kent’s immunity. Each time the State Department refused, and Kent was soon returned to the United States.
Kent was driving without insurance, a violation of State Department policy, so, except for one round of drug therapywhich Kent opted to pay for, Kashin hasn’t seen a penny in damages. The bedridden Kashin has not been reimbursed for medical costs or now-necessary objects like a wheelchair or a special mattress to prevent bedsores. He is forced to wear diapers, since a colostomy is too expensive.
“My first reaction was disbelief,” said Gallagher. “This is not something the United States does?use diplomatic immunity and walk away from a quadraplegic.”
Certainly concerns exist that it would be difficult for Kent to receive a fair trial within the Russian legal system. However, according to Georgetown government professor Christopher Joyner, it is common practice to prosecute diplomats in their home countries, even if immunity is maintained. To this day, Kent has not been prosecuted in any country. Kashin was able to file a civil suit against Kent, landing him in an Alexandria, Va. federal court. The case will likely be tried early next year.
Undeniably, diplomatic immunity is necessary to properly conduct foreign policy. Diplomats cannot be subject to harrassment or the threat of undue arrest and prosecution while abroad. However, when an egregious case of wrongdoing occurs, as in the cases of Makharadze and Kent, these concerns are trumped.
The sad part is that political pressures and pragmatic concerns drive these decisions, not justice. Will this affect our trade relationships? What about the morale of the diplomatic corps? “There’s no bright line that determines when diplomatic immunity ends and the State Department might waive that immunity,” said Joyner.
The past year has heard plenty of talk about America’s image abroad. If our country is serious about presenting itself to the world as a defender of liberty and justice, not as a neighborhood bully with rich parents, the State Department should start weighing its policies on factors beyond politics and pragmatism. Being the world’s only superpower doesn’t excuse us from moral responsibility or consistency.
