The Daily Observer (Banjul)
Yunus S Saliu
6 November 2008
column
On this week's Crime Watch, Acting Principal Magistrate Kumba Sillah Camara of the Bundung Magistrates' Court enlightens us more about the meaning of law as related to the society with the causes of crimes among the youths.
Society is a population of humans characterised by patterns of relationships between individuals that may share a distinctive culture and institutions. While law is a system of rules a society sets to maintain order and protect harm to persons and properties. According to Acting Principal Magistrate Kumba Sillah Camara, law is a body of rule guiding human conducts, which is of course guided by sanctions. And most laws are codified.
Law is ancient, today no society can do without law, and most countries have as many as hundreds of thousands of pages of law. Laws are enforced in the society by the police, supported by the court and prison systems. It is important to know that law must uphold and not contradict the constitution-a document outlining the most basic rules of the country.
There are so many categories of law. We have company law, contract law, criminal law, constitutional law, civil law. Principal Magistrate Kumba Sillah said each of these sets the rules for a distinct area of human activity. Also the guidelines to be followed which of course if you don't follow there are always sanction.
Talking about criminal and civil cases in society, most criminal cases are handling by the state. It is quite different from civil cases which are between two individual. Civil case can even be solved among individual that involve.
It can be out of court. On criminal case, it is state that provides sanction for it. In criminal case individual have no right to withdraw it except the prosecution. That's it is the state that can withdraw it. This must be based on cogent reason(s) like looking into section 68 of the CPC Section 1: It is said that it should be done even with consent of the court.
The rate youth are committing crimes nowadays is very alarming. And most of these crimes are of criminal offences. In the courts there are more criminal cases more than civil cases.
Expanding on the necessity and need of law in the society, Mrs Kumba Sillah Camara said laws are guidelines that set out appropriate behaviour that has been developed over time. The only different between animal and human being is the law. If there is no law guiding human being, there will be lawless, intolerance, anarchy, and chaos. In fact there will be no peace. Law is more than necessity because without law people will trample on each others right.
The law is there not only to curb but to guide and protect the society. Ignorance is not an excuse of the law. Despite that the society is well enlightened about the law; there is still need for more sensitization of about the law through workshop, media both print and electric, and so on.
Crime among the youth in the society is due to some personal attitudes which need to be changed. Majority believe that youths of nowadays are very lazy. Large numbers of them want the quickest way out. Better example of this is travelling illegally (back way) to abroad. So far the money to facilitate this is not short-coming; some might resulted to crime as way forward. Sometime some commit crime out of frustration. Youth supposed to be the architect of their own destiny by taking their destiny into their own hands.
Law is a respecter of nobody, even the maker of the law. This has been portrayed. We have seen this in some cases in our society especially in some high profile cases that we have.
People of high profile or in the high society sometime they are jailed. We need to respect the law; the law don't respect anybody. There is nobody that is above the law. But the law is there to guide and protect everyone.
Most common criminal cases that are becoming order of the days are rape and murder. Rape is forced, unwanted sexual intercourse. It is also the defilement of girl below the age of 18 years. Sometimes, rape is called sexual assault.
Rape is about power, not sex. A rapist uses actual force or violence, threat to take control over another human being. Some rapists used drugs to take away a person's ability to fight back Rape is a crime, whether the person committing it is a stranger, dating, acquaintance or family member.
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