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Mauritius: No One is Above the Law and No One is Below It
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L'Express (Port Louis)
COLUMN
29 August 2007
Posted to the web 29 August 2007
Raj Jugernauth
Port Louis
"I cannot quite understand how things like this happen. In any case, during the days of my father (Sir Seewoosagur), not any Tom, Dick and Harry could have access to the Parliament".
This is the English translation of a statement the Prime minister Navin Ramgoolam is quoted as having made about the incident in the Lunch Room of the Parliament last Friday.
The Prime minister should try to see beyond this incident in which one of his ministers received a death-threat from two political agents belonging to the Labour Party. And this is not the first violent action - whether verbal or physical - by these two agents. The Prime Minister should link it to things which happened during his father's days.
Whatever happened last Friday happened just because 40 years after our independence, some people, especially thugs linked to political parties, still believe that they are above the law. Armed with such beliefs, some of them have written dark pages in the history of this island. Surath and Azor Adelaïde are two of those who paid with their lives for such banana republic ways.
At a given time, drug barons, some of them linked to politicians, started to behave in the same manner. Urgent and courageous decisions were necessary to halt that dangerous drift.
Ours is a nation of laws, not of men. When those who have helped in political campaigns, with their money or their fists, start to get immunity, thing very rapidly get ugly. And dangerous for everyone. Dangerous, to begin with, to the political parties who nourish these thugs, making them into untouchable citizens, beyond the law.
The Irish government had a bitter experience when such a monster grew out of control and gunned down Veronica Guerin in broad daylight as her car waited at a traffic-light. She was famous for her investigations into Dublin's drug rings and her assassination led to such public outcry that the Irish Government had to pass urgent legislation which quickly quashed the drug barons.
That no one is above the law's command and no one is below the law's protection must be part of a culture that this government and its ministers should impose. Not only on its political thugs, but also on some of its protégés serving in public office.
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The country is heading towards a very distasteful situation in which some people appear to be convinced that being a member of a particular political party, ethnic group or caste bestows immunity upon their very unprofessional and unethical behaviour.
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