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Law to meet human needs

Friday, 22 July 2011 10:18am

©The Star (Used by permission)
Putik Lada by Genevieve Tan

We sometimes forget a simple fact about the law: as our needs grow and change, the law can grow and change with those needs.

WHY do we have the law? In other words, what is the law essentially about?

The law is about our needs. Where there is a need, whether it is to eat or to be protected from harm, the law is created to address those needs.

When you want to understand the law, you need to first understand what is the need behind that law.

For example, Article 9 of the Federal Constitution sets out our right to move and live in any part of Malaysia. Why? Because we need to move and settle wherever we want in our country.

When we needed to protect ourselves from being robbed, the law addressed that need by creating section 390 of the Penal Code setting out the offence of robbery.

Simply put, the law accommodates human needs. With that logic, how can we say that we cannot be protected and loved by the law? How can we also say that the law does not serve us?

We sometimes tend to forget. We also sometimes forget another simple fact about the law: as our needs grow and change, the law can grow and change with those needs.

For example, in response to the public’s need to counter corruption, parliament passed the Anti-Corruption Act 1997 and subsequently replaced it with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009.

To combat money laundering and terrorism financing, the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001 was passed.

Mind you, these laws were passed less than ten years ago. Hence, whether or not these laws are effective, the point remains: the law continues to change as it follows our needs.

What does this say? Like us, our Government realises that they have to respond to our needs to curb corruption or to deal with the problem of money laundering.

After all, our Government, like many other governments, serves us, the people, as we serve them. Without each other, our Government cannot work and we cannot live in this country at all.

The law creates regulations. Without the law, we are without order, stability, regulation and consequently, we would be without peace.

Every piece of legal document that you see came from a source. In Malaysia, we wrote these basic laws into a document called the Federal Constitution.

In Britain, the place from where we derived a lot of our laws, it has no written constitution.

So, if we think of this logically, there was no natural source for laws that outlawed one kind of human or another. There simply was the love to protect and support our needs.

And what was the fifth basic law that was passed by Malaysia?

This is set out in Article 5 of our Federal Constitution which states: “No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty, save in accordance with law.”

What was the source before that fifth basic law?

“This Constitution is the supreme law of the Federation and any law passed after Merdeka Day which is inconsistent with this Constitution shall, to the extent of the inconsistency, be void.”

This is my third article on the law and if you noticed, I repeat certain themes. Without any disguise, I see the law as a very simple thing. It even protects companies.

For example, section 222 of the Companies Act, 1965 allows a company to be protected from court proceedings if it makes such an application to the court.

Allow me to show you how much more simple and powerful it can get.

The law creates protection, officers of protection and leaders to protect the law. The law was created to love us.

Take another example, the issue of teenage pregnancy. Teenage mothers and their babies are protected by the usual criminal laws and the Child Act 2001.

However, the current laws on unwed teenage mothers do not provide adequate support systems for these mothers who are abandoned by the fathers of the babies and their own families.

As a result, many of these mothers are forced out into the streets or into shelters.

If we want to change the current laws to address the needs of unwed teenage mothers and their babies, we actually can!

Just like with the Anti-Corruption Act, we can act on our need to punish unwed fathers who have abandoned their pregnant teenage partners and update our laws to give better support to these mothers.

Let’s not forget that blame and causation is not the issue here. The issue here is that we have the power to change the law if we love our needs enough.

As public citizens, we are the reason why there are laws in the first place. As public citizens, we outnumber lawyers, ministers, doctors and accountants put together. So by numbers alone, we as public citizens have more power with the law than our professional colleagues do.

Each and every one of us is more powerful than we think. After all, we have the law that was created to love us and to address our needs.

Like in my last article Mirror, mirror on the wall, let’s just keep things simple.

Let’s use the law and ourselves to treat everyone with courtesy, morality and love.

> Putik Lada, or pepper buds in Malay, captures the spirit and intention of this column – a platform for young lawyers to articulate their views and aspirations about the law, justice and a civil society. For more information about the young lawyers, visit www.malaysianbar.org.my.

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