Attack on Court

The country witnessed with shock and dismay, the ugly incidents in the precincts of the Mannar Magistrate’s Court complex. This disrespectful episode is the first in history, I belive, to have occurred in a court in the country.

This country has come to such a sorry pass that nowadays even courts of law are not spared. Whither are we heading? When ordinary citizens take the law into their hands and go on the rampage on a court decisions, the future of this country is dark and gloom. We have witnessed enraged people attacking police officers and police stations and some others on private buses and even setting fire to them. Now this ugly canter has spread to court of law, impinging its sanctity and breaching the Rule of Law. It is sheer foolhardiness and high-handedness to sit in judgment on a court decision. A judge is appointed to mete out justice without fear and favour. A section of the fishing community has the audacity to bring disrepute to a court just become the judgment went against their favour. If that is so, they have the right to seek redress in a higher court, not resorting to thuggery like common thugs.

I am positive this ugly incident would never have happened if not for influential individuals instigating it. Politicos may play ball in parliament. However, a court is an august chamber. Any individual cannot be a pain maker. Any police, whatever the standing, has no moral or legal right to take phone calls to judges. They are not their henchmen. This is a dangerous precedent which should be nipped in the bud before it escalates into alarming proportions. There should be a street code of conduct in this regard.

M. Azhar Dawood