“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
– John Adams, second US President
JOHN Adams knew Americans had abandoned a monarchy gone sour across the Atlantic. The choice of a republic under a democracy was not an exercise in getting things right. His mind entertained morbid thoughts of a future with unspeakable consequences.
Most (dis)organised governments pretend to get things right. They cannot get anything right because compromises displace and replace cooperation. Rectifying past flaws to create a rewarding culture for society hardly happens.
Antiquated and impotent ways, methods and policies make the system rancid and repulsive. “History, in general, only informs us what bad government is,” recanted Thomas Jefferson. Elected officials, arguably, are not intellectually equipped to get things right.
But there is a safe bet that the electorate begs for eternal punishment until another May 9 2018 is occasioned in Malaysia. That blue moon moment is an illusion because the master plan was not to get things right. Old ways and old folks must ride away into the sunset.
The old cliché – the rule of law – is getting boring. We need the role of justice advancing morality and fair play as enunciated in the Federal Constitution and the Holy Quran (English version) Surah An-Nisa (4:135), respectively.
The term “morality” is explicitly mentioned in Article 10(2) and Article 11(5) of the Malaysian Federal Constitution. Specifically, Article 10(2) allows for restrictions on the right to freedom of speech and expression based on, among other things, public order or morality.
Article 11(5) states that the right to profess, practice, and propagate religion cannot be exercised contrary to public order, public health, or morality. Are we ready to get things right? Why is morality missing in our educational syllabus?
Political leadership is beset with the Dunning-Kruger effect that describes a cognitive bias where individuals with low competence in a particular area tend to overestimate their abilities, while those with high competence may underestimate their skills.
Sweet sounding lies lead to broken promises, false expectations and dashed hopes. The lies are so insidious that even the Judiciary is not equipped to dismantle the constitutional prevarications to set and get things right.
The seafarer James Cook warned that “the decline and fall of a civilisation is barely noticed by most of its citizens”. Let’s hope we are far away from such dismal realities.
Civic consciousness is now assumed philosophical proportions. When will we get it right? Why can’t we control the litterbug disease, for example? Why can’t we care for our neighbour? What went wrong?
The people are consulted once very five years when the government decides to dissolve Parliament and call for general elections. Meanwhile local government remains unelected. Democracy commitssuicide with no help line from the three organs of state.
When will we things right? Government taxes everything. Al-Baqarah 2:219 in the Holy Quran (English version) explains that there is no concept of income tax in Islam like in western capitalist countries. Taxes should be levied on excess wealth and not on income.
We may get it right when our government realises that no power on earth can control or regulate the creation of paper ringgit and minting fresh coins. We may get it right if we print a billion ringgit every month to purchase gold.
Government quietly practises the art of perpetrating the principle of permissible harm. Nobody really feels it, but the alert, agile and awakened souls know it as the beating heart of every sociopolitical issue.
Legal dilemmas, for example are irresolvable and unavoidable because we have a constant collision between parliamentary supremacy and constitutional supremacy. Will the experts make sure to entrench policies to get things right?
The most disingenuous Latin dictum suum ciquetribuere (to everyone his due) characterises a permanent formula for justice, but it is a Marxist principle – from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.
To get things right and proper, the electorate must invite and entertain intellectual unrest a few hours everyday day to find solutions and remedies that can be passed on to our future leaders.
To get things right, our leaders must start thinking deep. Yale Law Professor Myres S. McDougal posed this timeless gem: “Do we protect it because it’s a property right or is it a property right because we protect it.”
He probably borrowed the concept that Socrates posed to Euthyphro: “Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?”
Are we getting it right demanding bumiputera equity in foreign-owned companies and stringent halal import restrictions that ostensibly triggered Trump’s 24 per cent reciprocal tariffs on Malaysian imports?
Our Judiciary got it right with the oft misunderstood basic structure doctrine. Two powerfully scathing dissents in PP v. Kok Wah Kuan [2007] 1 MLJ, and another in Zaidi Kanapiah v ASP Khairul Fairoz bin Redzuan [2021] 3 MLJ 759 cast constitutional supremacy in concrete.
Article 159 and Article 4(1) Federal Constitution must come to terms as to Parliament’s powers to amend the Federal Constitution without disturbing the basic structure doctrine. That will speak of a matured Malaysian democracy.
“If you cannot get it all right, don’t get it all wrong,” advised Ernest Agyemang Yeboah.
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at chiefjudge@secamtektektribe.org.
