Utter disregard for rule of law setting bad precedent in Nepal (Commentary)

Pritam Bhattarai / Kathmandu: For an ideal nation, both the government and the citizens share responsibilities and are bound to abide by the rule of law. To be more precise, in a democratic nation, how the rule of law is functioning determines the running of the state of affairs.

On May 26 earlier this year, transport entrepreneurs and workers in Nepal enforced a nationwide transport strike, throwing normal life out of gear and incurring a loss of thousands of rupees from trade and business. The motive behind the strike was to protest against the government’s decision to hike fine for violation of traffic rules.

Through the transport strike, the protesters were in fact stating that they would not follow the new law introduced by the State and could do anything they wished—bad or good—but without taking into account the welfare of mass public.

More recently last Tuesday, vegetable traders at the Balkhu Vegetable Market in the capital attacked a monitoring team comprising Minister for Supplies Ganesh Man Pun. The reason behind the attack was for the monitoring team to turn up for monitoring ‘without prior notice’.

Among many things that these two incidents tell about the Nepali state of affairs, one common conclusion that can be drawn from them is that the people doing business in the country have no regard whatsoever to the rule of law. Hiding under the cover of Unionism, the people involved in the business of transport and vegetable marketing demonstrated utter disregard for the law of the state. By doing so, they were also violating the rights of the ordinary people, to commute by public transportation and to purchase food items that are healthy and fairly priced.

For a state, health and safety of its citizens comes first and foremost priority and it has to do everything it can as per the prevalent laws to safeguard the fundamental rights of the people. However, the government alone cannot accomplish the task and support from all including civil society organizations and the general people at large is inevitable.

However, in both the aforementioned cases, civil society organizations and associations, instead of cooperating with the government, have supported the motives of the protesters and assaulters that have broken the law.

The two incidents are just a case in point. Also recently, doctors and health workers halted medical service in Birgunj to protest against the arrest of those doctors possessing fake academic certificates. On the one hand they were discouraging the authorities from taking action against people involved in forgery of academic certificate to join a profession as sensitive as the health sector, while on the other they were violating the rule that bars strikes in essential service including health service.

Not only such kind of support for illegal acts will encourage the law violators, people will also gradually lose faith in institutions that they are part of. It will also encourage others to follow suit.

And in the case of the vegetable vendors in Balkhu, the traders were found to be fleecing consumers by using weighing scales not meeting standards set by the Bureau of Standards and Metrology. Although incidents of traders and other opportunists fleecing customers are common in Nepal, inflation and black marketeering have reached a new height of increment especially after the border blockade imposed recently by India.

Many traders and people took the blockade as a good opportunity to cheat on the people through hoarding and hiking price of daily essentials. And to make matters worse for the ordinary people, even months after an end to the blockade, prices of many essentials and goods that almost doubled in the name of the blockade are yet to come down.

So it is high time that the government comes out strictly against those violating the law, and even those who are coming in support of the people who have no regard for the rule of law whatsoever. Bowing down to traders united to fulfil inherent self-interest through unions and associations will send out a wrong signal to the citizenry as far as their trust on the government and state authorities is concerned.

The Government should also carry out regular monitoring and take action against the guilty to curb black marketeering and monopoly of traders and opportunists. And it is equally important that the state does not hesitate in bringing the guilty to justice regardless of their political affiliations and links with persons holding power. RSS