Sergeant says : The Tun M and the Social Contract . Many may heard or read that our former Prime Minister is in view that the gun crime is rampaging in exchange of greater flexibility of freedom. As layman , many may say " he must be out of his mind ! " . Well , to sum up what I am about to say, I think he had made some points over here. I briefly read through the Social Contract, not the one governing racial relations during merdeka, but the one written by Jean Jac Resseau during the French Revolution period. social contract, is a contract between the people, and the government . In exchange for public order , the people should surrender some rights. Never a country champs for total freedom. A freedom in total is catastrophic in nature. Allow me to quote you an example. A police will detain a suspect for several days for investigation. It may be a police order, or a magistrate order. If the prosecution decided to bring the matter on trial, and the judge finds that there is a case to be tried, the suspect will be further detained, has his passport forfeited temporarily. If the charges are petit, he may be bailed. But if the charges are indictable in nature, he will have to be locked up in police lock up or jail pending trial. Yes, a standard legal procedure. Another principle that we adapted under the notion of freedom or democracy or human right as you may proclaim, is "innocent until proven guilty " . This is in fact contradictory against my earlier example. An innocent man is deemed to be a well-being citizen. How can we lock up a well being citizen , a good behave gentleman who in that point of time , committed no crime ? According to our contract with the government or authority, we place a imaginary hypothesis that the suspect is in fact the criminal , and we need to forfeit his freedom temporarily to allow the legal process to ensure that he is or not the real criminal. In this case, freedom was compromise for public order which in another word, also a social justice, and another form of rights. Every single country has a unique mechanism to replace the current system during time of emergency. Using Malaysia as example, if emergency is declared, more freedom will be constrained such as freedom of speech, freedom of movement. I believe British government invoked the emergency order during world war 2 where one of the policy is to forcefully parting the children from their parents. In Malaysia, gun crime is rampaging. If I may use the public perception as a pointer in timeline, it only started to be serious after the emergency ordinance is revoked. emergency ordinance enable police authority to detain a suspect up to 60 days, without trial if the authority is in opinion that the person may commit a crime in the future. Undeniably, many who intended to commit crime did scared off by the police who on and off throw them into detention when they were up to something (mainly attributed to the efficiency of our special branch to acquire informations ( not just gathering evidence ). American does embraces law as such, namely the notorious patriot act which allows detention without trial for the sake of national security. national security and public order were elements of freedom from crime. To embrace this freedom, a compromise must be done on other freedom. The equilibrium of these two freedom shifts all the time, depending on the circumstances and situation. tun M correctly pointed out, in exchange of freedom ( right to a fair trial ), gun crime gone rampaging. I am not a fan of detention without trial but many facts had proven that it is a good preventive measurement . The removal of emergency ordinance shifted the equilibrium point from social order towards right to a fair trial. And the consequence is a compromise of public order, which is gun crime. We are human, not god, not even the most advance country in the world like US, UK or Japan may guarantee zero crime .social contract In Malaysia, was amended, I believe that , the increase in gun crime rate fills in the vacuum between former equilibrium point to the new one. And I believe that this would not be long as the police and the concerns netizens will realises that each of everyone will have to take part in closing the gap between these points.
Posted on: Sun, 18 Aug 2013 04:31:51 +0000