TWO SYSTEMS OF LAW is a phrase that carries a familiar ring of echoes. This catch phrase points to the perception of a particular kind of negative discrimination that privileges some people over others when matters of law, justice and fairness are caught up in a trial of moral evaluation. For those with power and influence, it appears as though they could excuse themselves from the rule of law. For others who are less privileged, law is expensive to afford if they were to defend or protect themselves. Jerry Tendawai recently wrote an article in the Post Courier which is entitled “Where is PNG heading with two sets of laws?” Tendawai makes the following observations.
“In Papua New Guinea it seems the lawmakers and bureaucracts with their cronies are higher than the laws of this country but we ordinary citizens cannot resist but can face the full strength of the law when we happen to break it. This highlights the recent use of tough police tactics on the bank robbery suspects that were seen through the media that has now opened up many windows of the law enforcement sector, than had definitely alerted the corridors of power telling every citizen, where Papua New Guinea is heading to with its two sets of laws….”
Tendawai complaints that people who have been appointed to positions of trust and responsibility “have literally defrauded the state millions of kina. The law enforcing body is like a dog without being let of its leash barking orders to shoot to kill the monkeys stelling plantation bananas while the big fish escape the hook with large sums of money beloning to mor than six million population of Papua New Guinea. This defines the two sets of people here in Papua new Guinea and have dared to defy justice through deceitful actions and partner corruption at the highest level”.
Tendawai’s letter is cast against a particular background of fraud cases in Papua New Guinea where huge amounts of public money have been squandered by those who were charged with responsibilities of trust and authority. Often this involves the collusion of several lawyers and some accountants or other bureaucrats who come up with some fishy deals and then dress up the books after monies have been diverted. One of the ongoing cases involves monies belonging to the National Provident Fund which involved the collaboration of several lawyers and politicians. People who have been charged for these cases are still on trial and perhaps they may even evade prosecution at all largely because of the access they have to lawyers and their political sympathesisers.
In the recent cases of organised bank robberies, we see a commendable response from the Police to arrest and charge some of the main suspects of these crimes. While full details about these robberies are only beginning to emerge, anecdotal accounts from the streets of Moresby indicate that there could be some people of power and influence who are involved at some level somewhere in these spate of daring armed robberies. Some suspected accomplishes were caught while having high powered guns in their possessions.
Without overburdening this account, an immediate moral to this tale lies in the contrast between a lawyer’s briefcase and the robber’s gun. Armed with a briefcase, a lawyer can more readily defend and protect himself from the press of prosecution than an armed robber stealing from a bank. The recent cases of robberies illustrate this well. This tale however changes its depth and complexity once criminal elements and people of influence find ways to enrich themselves against the saftey and interest of the public at large. This raises anew the issue of two laws: one law looks after the sanity and wellbeing of commoners and the other is applied to the management of privileges and monopolies of the powerful. But if access to political and economic power becomes a measure of delineating the operations of these two systems of law, what is law if it were not an instrument of access and expediency?