‘Culture of lawfulness’ urged
Thailand must foster a “culture of lawfulness” in order to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 16, ensuring peace, justice and strong institutions, a seminar was told.
The Thailand Institute of Justice (TIJ) recently organised a seminar to discuss implementing a “culture of lawfulness” in Thailand in order to raise the nation’s justice system standards.
Participants debated whether de facto (social norms) power or de jure (the law) power is more important in protecting the peace and stability of a country.
In a case where de facto power can be seen as the more prominent factor, a study by Turkish-born American economist Daron Acemoglu looked at representatives of each country working at the United Nation’s headquarters in New York whom were given immunity to park wherever they wished with all parking tickets defaulted under the US government’s permission.
‘‘The US government gave this privilege to these representatives as an entitlement to their position and duty. A study conducted by Mr Acemoglu tested whether countries with high corruption would use this abovethe-law privilege more than countries with less corruption,’’ says Thanee Chaiwat, director of the Centre for Behaviour and Experimental Economics at Chulalongkorn University.
‘‘Over time, the people of New York City staged a protest against this privilege as it was a striking contrast to the norm that people were accustomed to, forcing the UN to instead send parking tickets back to each host country’s government to pay and broadcast results annually on CNN of who racked had up the largest number,” Mr Thanee added.
Mr Chaiwat revealed the three countries with the least parking violations were in Scandinavia, while Thailand was listed in the bottom 10.
‘‘What we can learn from this case study is the power of culture which can control the behaviour of everyone in a country regardless of their nationality. This is why a lawful culture is crucial in shaping a healthy public and political environment,” said Mr Thanee.
“A very common scenario in Thai culture is respecting seniority, thus one’s age can supersede what is right or wrong. Karma is also a common justification to overlook legitimate wrongdoing. If someone rides a bike and crashes because of a hole in the road, they blame karma from their last life when the state might be accountable for building bad roads.
“In the grander scheme of things, social inequality in this country is widely accepted for the same reason. We go to the temple to make merit so our next life is better, without considering economic and political fallacies as a reason for our current plight,” Mr Thanee argued.
Participants in the debate agreed that the government should start with small initiatives, such as building trust through stricter enforcement of laws. Cases of drunk driving, traffic violations and rape cases should be taken very seriously with no interference from higher powers
“One of the most worrying problem in all societies stems from how we as humanbeings measure power. We tend to measure power through how far we can live above the law which is often a norm in many societies around the world. Being law-abiding whether rich or poor is the greatest step forward,” said Mr Thanee.