It’s not more laws we need but impartial enforcement

Employment Minister Manusha Nanayakkara said last week that the Government has dedicated itself to introducing new laws to bring the system change that the people expect.

But is it the lack of laws that has made corruption thrive? Made bribery institutionalised? Or made the police turn a blind eye when powerful politicians are found to be behind crime syndicates? Made them follow a policy of selective law enforcement? Made the current system so thoroughly deplorable to the people?

As far as systems go, is it a dearth of laws that has made the present system decadent? So corrupt, so politicised and so financially bent that has made it produce decisions so perverse, so unjust and so bizarre? And the injustice done and seen to be done without blush or shame in the glare of the public light? Where no expert in any field of commerce, trade, law, or education can rationally predict the tribunal’s decision without taking into account political intervention to tip the scales? Safer to bet on the weather, the only clime left untouched by Lankan politicians.

We do not need new laws, except to update those that require it. Already there is a surfeit of laws which the government proudly holds before the world and boasts as its legal arsenal to fight corruption and all the other sins in society. We even have an efficient police force which, alas, has been robbed of its potency by politicians; and the same holds true of the Attorney General’s office and the judiciary.

But the surfeit of laws sit on the shelves gathering dust. An exotic buffet or Sunday brunch with enough dishes to sate any foodie’s gluttonous lust, but where only selected meats that sate the political tongue are served, the rest, left untouched, left only to be fed to a mass of flies.

We also have a system but one which flouted in the extreme has, in practice, been replaced by a parallel underground thriving system that functions without complaints and serves the ethically bereft exceedingly well.

It’s not more ornamental laws that this nation needs to needlessly add another hue to the rainbow in the legal firmament but a new generation of people, a new pedigreed class without a drop of mongrel blood that this nation so desperately needs to enforce and arbitrate the laws already extant and ensure justice is not only done but seen to be done. Only then will the Rule of Law be strengthened and respected.