Unruly rule of Law?

https://www.hitamputih.blog/post/najibs-pardon-can-it-be-challenged

Among my many indulgences is listening to real crime podcasts. More often than not, the prosecutor and the family victims go all out to ensure that the accused, in murder trials, gets the ultimate punishment, the death penalty. The victims feel their grief is not resolved unless and until the accused is punished to what is accepted by them as appropriate. If the trial ends in their favour, they would say in the post-trial interview that justice was served and they can carry on with their lives.

Occasionally, I hear of their victims’ kin saying that whatever punishment is meted out will never bring back the victim or bring back the life they missed. No punishment is severe enough to right the wrong. If the sentence does not fall in their favour, they would promise to continue fighting till the end of time.

Very rarely indeed, I have heard of the victims forgiving the assailants and letting them start a new slate. In such cases, those forgiven feel an instant relief from their burdens. Their head feels light. That, they say, is the magic of forgiving.

Humans, from time immemorial, had faith in the legal system as the higher authority to mete out justice. Assuming the legal system is only second to God in fairness, it has been likened to a divine decree.

Lately, in Malaysia since 2008, people have been talking about the rule of law and about Malaysians not glorifying criminals as heroes.

Now, we know that this statement is contextual. When the accused is linked to a particular political party, he may have been falsely accused and have had evidence planted by his enemies. He is, however, guilty as sin if he is in the opposition. Trial by media is popular. Everyone is a legal expert, and the loudest and the most foul-mouthed must surely be right. If, earlier, everyone thought ‘rule of law should prevail’, now the same people will rant that the legal system is compromised and engaged in selective prosecution.

Suddenly, the idea that the law of the land is supreme is no longer relevant.

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Not illegal, just skirting the truth.

Illegal (1955)
Director: Lewis Allen

https://www.blu-ray.com/Illegal/331947/

I ended up watching this film after seeing Mariska Hargitay's documentary about her mother, Jayne Mansfield. This must be one of Jayne Mansfield's earlier films, in which she played a minor role.

It is observed that Mansfield's character reflects that of Marilyn Monroe in 'Asphalt Jungle', another noir film. From the beginning, viewers are given an impression of how the law can be so flexible that it can be bent to suit the perspectives of the articulate speaker and a clever lawyer. An innocent man is sentenced to death, only for the actual perpetrator to make a dying declaration. His confession arrived too late, as it could not prevent the execution. Even though everything was done legally, the reality was that an innocent person was dead.

Then, the said lawyer, who had won the case as the prosecuting officer, after going on a drinking binge, defends another man in court illegally when someone boasts that he is a professional boxer and cannot be defeated. The lawyer punches him with rolled-up coins under his clenched hand to make his point.

Lawyers often manipulate the law to serve their own interests. When the mentioned lawyer transitions into private practice, an accountant arrives at his office with a stash of money. He had misappropriated funds from his firm. Here, we see how the clever lawyer shields his client from prosecution while protecting the accountant's employers from the embarrassment of losing the client's money. He does all this not to uphold justice but to prioritise his personal gains. Above all, he ensures he receives his professional fees first. Therefore, a lawyer works for his own benefit, bending the law and the truth to suit himself and his client, but certainly not in pursuit of universal justice.

The story shows him becoming involved with the local mob. Ironically, he ends up working for, unwittingly, the same person he once despised as a prosecutor. The film highlights his theatrical antics in a different trial. His client is accused of poisoning someone and causing their death. To demonstrate that the supposed poison was harmless, the lawyer drinks the contents of the bottle displayed during the trial as Exhibit A. This casts doubt on the chemist's report to the court, allowing his client to evade conviction. What no one else knew was that the lawyer left during an expected recess, due to the uproar caused by his antics, to undergo stomach lavage and evacuate the poison from his system. 

So, when lawyers say that having adequate legal redress is a human right, what they really mean is that we should find a way to get you out. Nothing more, nothing less! Jayne Mansfield portrays a dumb blonde musician and mistress who gets tossed around like a ragdoll but rises to the occasion when her conscience pricks. 

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A Bad Honeymoon?

Bitter Moon (1992)

Director: Roman Polanski

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Bitter-Moon-DVD-Peter-Coyote
/dp/B001AOHPN0

I have been reading about Polanski's brush with the law for years. In 1977, he was charged with multiple charges of drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl. Even though he made a plea bargain, upon hearing that he might be receiving a jail sentence, he absconded from the US, and till now, he has lived as a fugitive in France. He rarely travels for fear of extradition. 

Even before this case, he made headlines in 1969 when the deviant followers of Marilyn Manson embarked on a violent spree, killing Polanski's wife, Sharon Tate, who was eight-and-a-half months pregnant.

Polanski's 2002 film 'The Pianist' was well-received by the showbiz world. It went on to win multiple awards, including the Academy Award for Best Director (Polanski) and Best Actor (Adrian Brody). In 2008, a documentary was created about the life and times of Roman Polanski, receiving much acclaim from the showbiz community. Perhaps because of this, 100 Hollywood actors signed a petition calling for his charges to be dropped and for him to be allowed to return. His legal troubles persisted, with many new cases and counter-suits. He remains a fugitive, as the US courts require him to appear in person before making decisions. 

Rosemary Baby and Pianist are amongst the many great movies that he has made. 

'Bitter Moon' is a sarcastic reference to what we commonly refer to as a honeymoon. Nigel and Fiona Dobson, an English couple, are on a Mediterranean cruise heading to India. After seven years of marriage, they need to rediscover the meaning of life. Their reasoning appears quite comical to Mr Singh, a fellow passenger and widower, who is escaping India with his young daughter. The Dobsons' lives seem insignificant compared to the tumultuous and sexually fulfilling relationship of another couple on the same cruise, the sultry Mimi and her wheelchair-bound husband, Oscar. Even though Nigel feels uncomfortable listening to Oscar and Mimi's intimate personal lives, Oscar is determined to recount his story in great detail. To complicate matters further, the sexually deprived Mimi is making advances towards Nigel, exacerbating the Dobsons' already strained marriage.

Responses to this film are mixed. On the one hand, film connoisseurs have praised it highly for being engaging and delightfully entertaining; on the other hand, some label it as disturbing, asserting that Polanski has hit rock bottom. The movie was a commercial failure.

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Jury on Trial?

Juror #2
Director: Clint Eastwood

Yet another big one from Clint Eastwood. This 94-year-old may have directed his last movie, but one can never say never. This one makes us think, as did his previous offerings, like 'Letters from Iwo Jima', 'Flags of Our Fathers', and 'Gran Torino'.

It is a courtroom drama along the lines of '12 Angry Men', where the moral decision of convicting a person of a serious crime is the mainstay. This film, however, goes one step further. One of the jurors, Juror #2, may have committed the murder in the case he is judging. On the day of the incident, the Juror witnessed the tussle between the accused and his girlfriend at a bar. The girlfriend was found dead later that night by a creek beside a road. The accused was seen following his girlfriend in his car. With his destructive anger management issues, he was naturally accused of having mortally wounded his girlfriend. 

The trouble is Juror #2 is a recovering alcoholic and was nursing the pain of losing a pair of twins a year previously. He was fighting his inner demons to resist the bottle again. Self-restraint allegedly won the day. As he left the bar, he drove the same country road as the other two. Just as the Juror bent to pick up his phone to answer a call from his wife, he felt a thud. He looked up and saw nothing except for a deer crossing sign. He checked his car for damage and moved on, assuming he had hit a running deer. 

Juror #2 slowly realises, as he sits through the case, and with sudden flashes of his accident from the same night in his mind, that he could be the killer instead of the accused. What was he to do? Resign from his post, which may turn investigations towards him. At a time when he is looking forward to being sober for so long and ushering in his soon-to-be-born child, the last thing he needs is to go to prison.

With all the evidence stacked against the accused, argued by a DA with political ambitions, the accused is sure to be incarcerated for the crime he did not commit. A moral dilemma ensues within the Juror. Should he ensure that the jury delivers a unanimous decision of guilty so he (the Juror) is off the hook? If a mistrial is declared when the jury cannot convict him, the police may have to investigate again, and the Juror's name may crop up.

Does the truth reveal itself in the end? If the truth is so powerful and can maintain balance, why must we defend it? Is it everyone's moral duty to protect the truth no matter what it may do to them and the people around them? In the same breath, we insist that many versions of the truth exist. Who determines which is true, anyway? Many versions of it seem right from their perspective. Have they not heard of the Rashomon effect? Sometimes, truth is watered down to preserve peace.

Still, we insist on a fair hearing and that everyone deserves to be adequately represented. And we realise that many guilty criminals, with the power of the best legal minds that money can buy behind them, get away scot-free through technicalities. The innocent, too, can be punished with overwhelming circumstantial evidence. When a notoriously bad person who had escaped convictions before is penalised for a crime he did not commit, we say that his crimes have finally caught up with him. We justify the wrongful conviction akin to a person who lives by the sword and dies by it. Are the lawyers less enthusiastic about defending such criminals, or is wealth the determinant?

Are you being dishonest by putting your self-interest above doing the right thing? After all, no man is an island. On the other hand, no innocent man should be punished for something he did not do. Some feel pressured to mete out instant justice. We take shortcuts and cut down on paperwork. We don blinkers to confirm our biases and refuse to see beyond our scope of vision.

When a miscarriage of justice happens right in front of your eyes, just how far would you go to right the wrong, especially when it involves an admission of guilt? With the admission of error, you must bear the brunt of losing face and position. 

There are no answers, only questions. The film ends on a cliffhanger, probably on purpose, so viewers can ponder it and draw conclusions. It brings viewers into serious discussions on truth, justice, morality, and guilt.

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#MenToo?

The pendulum has swung. Not too long ago, the members of the fairer sex had a raw deal. They were placed as second-class citizens. They were discriminated against, received less salary and failed to capture high-ranking posts. They were assumed to think with their heart, not their brain, more emotional and less rational. Social restrictions were imposed in the familial hierarchy. They had to play second fiddle to a father figure in the family unit. Even when it came to passport applications for children, the father's consent used to be mandatory, but the mother's. 

There was a time when having a 'Y' chromosome was synonymous with masculine toxicity. Activists screamed of discrimination. They quickly illustrated how far behind they were in achievements compared to the others. They demanded legislative changes to correct the inequality. It did not matter that many females were actually more interested in other delicate stuff like fitting into their gendered roles than sweating it out in the rat race. They tried to show their presence through their romantic, creative writings in the early years, followed by the satiety of feeling of a blowing breeze when they indulged in cycling, symbolic of feeling freedom.

With the availability of education and mobility, everyone thought equality and empowerment would be the natural sequelae. But not really! Just as we thought everyone would have their place in the sun, chunks of the population think we should go more conservative. The female populace takes it upon themselves to take a back seat. Some used ancient scriptures to stunt women's development. 

Not all laws initiated by society end up serving the real needs of the masses. The #MeToo movement has shown us this. In this day and age, all one has to do to defame and defile a male is to allege that he had touched her inappropriately or acted without her consent. The truth, whether the action was consensual or did actually happen, is immaterial. The intended damage will happen like clockwork. 

Atul Subash

When Cupid misfires, and love turns sour, the feuding couple will start hurling accusations against each other. In India, the estranged wife has multiple secret weapons to deploy. She can accuse him of dowry harassment, sexual misconduct and domestic violence.

The recent suicide of Atul Subash, a tech professional from Bengaluru, had too much to deal with during his divorce proceedings. He alleged that his wife kept adding false accusations against him to the umpteenth cases already there. He added that the legal system is against men in every way it turns. Even though women can earn and stand on their feet, the system still expects the husband to pay alimony. The wives scorned have mastered the art of using the law to entrap and bankrupt the husbands dry. Atul clearly mentioned these in a 40-page confession and 80-minute presentation just before he hung himself.

Even though everyone is equal in the eye of the law, it cannot be denied that it is sympathetic to expressive and emotive victimhood-displaying females. In the eye of the law, by default, the male gender is the aggressor. They do not see males as the silent sufferers or the abused. There is a need to have gender-neutral laws. As is quite apparent, there can be aggressors on either side of the fence; there are gentle males and combative females, too. And there are passive-aggressive ones, too. 

Ironically, a law created to defend the vulnerable had spinned on its own head. The vulnerable have mastered the nuances and loopholes of law that they have wrapped around their fingers to give the accused violators.

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Even the Universe does not bother!

The New Indian Lady Justice
Note the saree, absence of blindfold and sword.
(knowledge replaces brutal force)

I have been naive all through my formative and even adult life. I had thought that Truth or the Universe would put everything in order. In the end, Dharma will rule. No matter how deviant, conniving, or evil humans may be, Nature has a way of tipping things back to equilibrium. 

Little things convinced me of this. When Man thought pests needed to be eradicated to increase their harvest yield, he introduced DDT. Little did he know it disrupted the food chain, from insects to birds and pollination of flowers and back to less yield. The spring of 1962 fell silent. When environmentalists were screaming, 'Save the Tigers on Sundarbans', little did they know that they had later to give protection to the people of that region when the tiger population doubled.

People equate the Courts with holding the balance of Justice. The courts are supposed to be independent, not swayed by emotion or power. We were convinced that everyone is equal in the eyes of the Law.

Increasingly, I think the Law has squinted eyes. One may argue that squinting does not equal altered vision. Neither does it refer to poverty of thought or vision. To the observer, however, it will always appear skewed to a particular side. After all, perception is vital in Law. Justice must be seen to be done.

It is apparent to my lay mind that the verdict of court cases, especially involving senior political leaders, go whichever way the current political wind blows. At the discretion of the learned justices, cases can go into cold storage, be fast-tracked or simply acquitted. When the evidence is too compelling, the accused may be off the hook awaiting temporarily, their cases seeing daylight at a later date (discharged not amounting to acquittal; DNAA), the wisdom of which is only known to the learned justices and the sycophants of the accused.

It is evident that the legal and judiciary systems pander to the might of those in power and bow to the general public's sentiments. The take-home message is that there is no right or wrong. Everything is contextual, including the direction of the public sentiments. Like a flower dependent on the elements of Nature to be pollinated, mere mortals get shoved and pushed around. 

Read the fascinating history of the coming of power of China's first Empress, Wu Zeitan. Her ascent to the throne was spectacularly bizarre. Starting off as a concubine, not even the favourite but sixth in line, she wrangled her way to be the Empress by killing her own daughter and blaming it on the reigning Emperor's consort. Her melodrama paid off. Even as the Empress, she called the shots of how the kingdom must be ruled. Her assertiveness and charisma made all the officials follow her line. She even paraded herself as a reincarnation of one of Buddha's female disciples. That regularised her demigod status and spread Buddhism to sell the religion to justify her maleficences. All the checks and balances were under her thumb. The learned court officers just toed the line in unison. The government machinery followed her tailcoat (or regal royal attire). The economy prospered, and peace was palpable. 

Maybe prosperity and peace of mind are all that matter at the end of the day, not righting all wrongs. One has to see the bigger picture, perhaps.) It is the economy, stupid, as uttered by a fornicator who went on to be the President and got away scot-free. In his mind, he did not have a sexual relationship with Lewinsky as, unlike others, he did think oral sex was sex. He was acquitted of impeachment charges by the US Senate. He is a respected speaker who earns millions around the world. The world no longer expects a leader to be virtuous. As long there is money. In Clinton's immortal words, 'It is the economy stupid!'

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Danger of swift justice!

We Want Justice!

A thing or two came up on my radar recently. Firstly, yet again, the unending saga of 1MDB took another court postponement. The deposed Malaysian PM has not finished disposing of his cases. This time, he has excruciating knee pain that needs hospitalisation. When told to be wheeled into the courtroom, the defence lawyers quipped that since he would be on opioid painkillers, he would not be in the correct frame of mind to follow the proceeding. They said their client must be seen to be given a fair trial. So be it, said the judges. 

Across the Straits of Malacca and Bay of Bengal, over in Kalkota, demonstrators are screaming that new legislation must be passed to expedite trials on rapists and impose the death penalty on them. The West Bengal Legislative Assembly even stipulated that investigations into sexual assault and rape must be concluded in 21 days.

Are we overdoing it in the haste to right the wrong, punish the wrongdoers, and set an example to potential offenders? 

The story of Kannagi, which was written by Illango in Silapathikaram in the Sangam epoch, probably in the 2nd century CE, comes to mind. Even though it is generally accepted as a literary work, some insist the likes of Kannagi walked as flesh and blood in the lands of Madurai. There is evidence that a big fire actually engulfed Madurai around that time. There is even a temple commemorating Kanagi as a symbol of chastity. To this day, people in Northern Sri Lanka still have a commemorative celebration on a particular day of her ascension to the heavens. Kannagi is said to have arrived in Sri Lanka after leaving Madurai and stopping at Kerala.

What does Kannagi's story have to do with dispensing justice? Everything!

Kannagi, a wealthy merchant's daughter, married Kovalan, a trader. During his business trips, Kovalan met a dancer, Madhavi. Kovalan started an affair with Madhavi, spending way too much time and money on her. When he realised his coffers were dry, Kovalan finally came to his senses and returned to his faithful wife. 

Kannagi and Kovalan decide to start all over again. They left their hometown, Perompahar, to settle in Madurai. For money, Kovalan left to sell Kannagi's anklet. 

Coincidentally, the news was that the Queen had lost her anklet. The royal goldsmith, who had stolen the anklet, accused Kovalan of being the thief. Kovalan was apprehended, given a half-hearted trial, and beheaded for being caught red-handed with the anklet.

Chera-Chola-Pandya kingdoms
300BCE - 300 CE

Kannagi charged into the royal court after hearing what had befallen her husband. She demanded justice from the King who had erred. She threw in her other anklet, similar to the confiscated one. It had rubies implanted into it, unlike the Queen's, which had pearls. Pandya King Nedilcharan had a heart attack and died on the spot. The Queen followed suit. The raged Kannagi started burning the curtains, and fires spread rapidly. She is said to have sliced off her breast in a fit of rage and fled the town. Fable has it that Meenachi, the city's guardian Goddess, had to come down to pacify her.

The event highlighted the trouble with hasty trials without proper detailed investigations and adequate representations. One innocent life lost is one life too many.

No matter how enraged society is, due process of the law must continue. Striking the iron when it is hot may burn one's fingers.

Silapathigaram is one of the five great epics said to have come from South India in the Sangam era, the golden era of Tamil literature. The epics of the Sangam period, which lasted between 300 BCE and 300 CE, are Seevaka-Kintamani, Silappathigaram, Manimegalai, Kundalakesi and Valayapathi. Tolkappiam is said to be the oldest scripture available from this era. In this period, different parts of this region were ruled by three major Empires, Chera, Chola and Pandya, with Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism with various popularity over time. Some staunch Tamil literary figures insist that scriptures of the Sangam period are of higher literary value than even epics like Ramayana and Mahabharata. It is less cluttered and gives a vivid description of life and culture in ancient Tamil lands without involving too many characters. Works emanating from this era gave valuable South religious, sociopolitical and economic conditions. They were written in poetry and sometimes prose form in Tamil script.

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