BY Armin Wandrewala
Hard cases make bad laws is a truism generally acknowledged by lawyers. Hard times make for bad laws, it would appear. Our lawmakers have been experimenting with a series of them. After the manipulation of MISA, the terror of TADA, the mockery of MCOCA, we now face: Pulverizing POTO!
Even saner voices in the Government seem unduly sensitive to the slightest criticism of the proposed legislation. Any opponent of POTO is seen as an ally of terrorism. Nothing could be more counterproductive to healthy, open debate and dissent, nothing more conducive to the ossification of ideas and view-points, thus playing into the hands of those with agendas other than safeguarding the civil and human rights of the general populace. The voice of the rational middle ground is drowned by the shrill stridency of polarized extremes.
No doubt the menace of terrorism requires to be curbed. The question is, is POTO (or similar legislation) the answer? In trying to contain the menace of terrorism, isn’t the State in the danger of unleashing terrorism of its own, with the hapless citizen likely to be the casualty, caught in the pincer movement?
The problem with POTO is that the definitions are way too wide, far too sweeping in their reach, and definitely open to misuse. The proponents of POTO may play ostrich as much as they like; A provision not only vitiating the Constitution, but militating against inalienable human rights.
(And let us not be under any illusions about MCOCA—prosecutors themselves in private conversation have dubbed it `maxi-TADA’, and the cops call it MOCCA — it is indeed a cruel mockery in a few unfortunate cases. Here I am not talking about big businessmen or famous film-stars, but ordinary common men and women, some youngsters barely out of their teens, languishing in jail, haunting the Special Court on remand days, hauled like cattle in the Black Maria.)