DailyPost 2379
THE LOST LEGALITY
Fairness not a democratic trait. It has to evolve as a human trait. Human history has proven that very few cultures, communities and societies have been able to inculcate it amongst its members. Democracy and democratic mindset somehow propagate the ideology to fight for your rights and rightly so. Given the nature from where the democratic societies started and the destination they intended to reach, this was only journey, if traversed, would help them become a robust democratic state. As indicated, if fairness becomes a missing trait, amongst large part of the population and more so amongst the main practitioners, where does the democratic platform take us.
The core of the democratic platform is legality, democracy is a legal state, and the rules of the game is mostly visible, but the invisible can have lots of bearing on the platform, changing its very purpose itself. Legality cannot hang in mid-air, played about in every conceivable manner and then expecting it remains and delivers in a copybook style, and that is the reason, democracies deliver differently, in different countries, and in the same country under different dispensations. Have we been able to make democratic legality as the DNA of India’s population.
The answer is a resounding no. The running thought process in the country is to achieve whatever you want by hook or by crook. If your caught being exceptional crook, you can always say, that you fate was bad. Legality is not just a simple judicial concept; it is all pervasive application in the executive. Contrary of our perception, it is here, where the legality is being most played around with. Lost legality is the running currency of the executive administration or can be rightly worded as executive legal dispensation of the country. With no provision of transparency like in a judicial trial, the executive powers are being used at whims and fancy. It can be dictated too at times, depending on who rules the roost.
How easy it is for you to get your legal claims processed with the executive? How easy it is getting the required information? How easy is it to get to know the de-facto process? Do timelines have any value? These are symptomatic of the malaise of lost legality in our executive dispensations. The ruling class will lose its value if things run like a software program. The stronger the dispensation, the stronger is the case for lost legality. This extends to the judicial administration, once the aggrieved has to go the courts. The process is the punishment, even if the judgement is in his favour. Making football of a citizen is a case of lost legality. Using the dispensation of justice mechanism by creating unnecessary cases, FIRs across India, using known legal loopholes, embroiling the opponents / enemy in judicial proceedings, not acting by passing over the issue on to the courts, providing flimsy legal connects and getting over, all fall under lost legality. The teaming up of the legal eagles and the powers that be, using every legal knot and crevice in their favour, finally enshrines lost legality.
LEGALITY CANNOT BE ENFORCED SCIENTIFICALLY WHEN ALL WANT TO MAKE IT A LOST CAUSE.
Sanjay Sahay