A good government tolerates dissent

Malaysiakini reported yesterday that our de facto Law minister has labelled all those lawyers who participated in the Walk for Justice as ‘crazy’.

As a medical person, my understanding is that  ‘being crazy ‘ denotes derangement of the minds, which means that a crazy person is no longer able to think rationally and behave rationally.Are those lawyers crazy? I do not think so. If they are crazy, they would not have objected so vehemently to the Lingam videos, which if proven to be authentic, would have meant that our judiciary has been compromised. That is why they ask for a thorough investigation to be carried out.

These sorts of behaviour is highly rational and in fact show the conscience of the lawyers as a profession.

In a family, when a spouse suspects that there is something wrong in the relationship, it is better for he or she to vioce out, before things get to the stage of no return. By voicing out to the the other half  his or her concern about their relationship, they are in fact taking responsibility to save the marriage and the family, which includes their children. On the other hand, a spouse that does not voice out when something is wrong will often find that the marriage will reach a stage of no return later on, resulting in the breakup of the family. Who suffers? Not only the husband and wife, but the children too will suffer emotionally and psychologically.

If there is a perception that something is wrong in the judiciary and yet the lawyers, who are the officers of Law, do not voice out, the whole justice system will eventually crumple. In the end, not only the lawyers themselves suffer, but also the public and by extension the whole nation – there will be no more recourse to justice. It is exactly because they love the judiciary and the country that these lawyers speak out.

All men are fallible; therefore, a government will inevitably make mistakes, because government institutions are managed by human. The important thing is to recognise a mistake once a mistake is done. To insist that the government is always right — that is the perception I get from the way that  paricular minister  reacts to dissent and issues — cannot be logical.

Therefore, the hallmark of a good government is not that it will not make mistakes but rather it recognises its mistakes (once they are pointed out-that is why feedbacks are important) and takes corrective steps to overcome the mistake. The Hallmark of a good government is therefore tolerance of dissent. By extension, a good minister will be one who listens to feedback, tolerates dissent, recognises mistakes and willing to take corrective steps to right the wrongs.

By this argument, I would like to call upon the Minister concerned to listen to the ground, think logically and put himself in the shoes of the people. If he is a normal citizen, what would he do? Don’t let the trappings of power and position blinds his own thought and conscience.

If he does so, I am confident that he will not view lawyers as crazy anymore. Rather, he will treat them as saviours of the judiciary and our beloved country.