The rule of law cannot operate as stark and naked. It must be clothed by a people’s culture and belief system
With the latest global scandals dubbed the Panama Papers, two contrasting reactions, to allegations of sleaze, have come from two different jurisdictions.
In one, the law was breached; complete with a formal legal censure for that breach, from that country’s Constitutional Court. In the other, the law was technically not broken. But the alleged morality of the act stank.
Yet, where the law was breached, the culpable holder of office held tight, supported by his rather permissive political milieu. But where the law was not even breached, the high official of state resigned because of citizens’ shrill moral outrage.
Welcome to South Africa and Iceland but with the rather disturbing proviso that Nigeria’s situation sits glumly in South Africa’s camp. That should bother every patriot committed to deepening our democracy and clearing the public space of sleaze.
In South Africa, the Constitutional Court upbraided President Jacob Zuma for spending state money to renovate private property. By calling for legal sanctions against the president, the Constitutional Court fully discharged its own duty by the law. That created a buzz in parliament, climaxing in an impeachment vote against the president. But at the end, the move failed.
By the impeachment vote’s defeat, due process succeeded. But the law failed. The president retains his seat, though he has committed culpable misconduct. But alas! The parliament, with a comfortable African National Congress (ANC) majority, decided that the misconduct was not serious enough. A reminder of former President Goodluck Jonathan’s distinction between stealing and corruption?
Now, flip the coin, and we go skating in Iceland: a similar set of laws (punish sleaze in the public space) but a completely different set of ethos.
Courtesy of Panama Papers, Iceland Prime Minister, Sigmumdur Gunnlaugsson, with his spouse, Ann Sigurlaug Palsdottir, floated a shell company, Wintris, with the help of Mossack Fonseca, a Panama law firm, that had developed good capacity in midwifing such notorious investments, most times to evade tax.
Evidence shows most of the assets belonged to Ms Palsdottir, the daughter of a rich Toyota dealer, from whom she inherited some family wealth and assets. The Prime Minister explained, when the news broke, that his wife had always declared her family’s assets to Iceland tax authorities; and technically, he had done nothing wrong since Iceland’s parliamentary laws did not require he declare his interest in Wintris.
But such was the public ire, thousands of protesters calling for the Prime Minister’s head, that he had no choice but oblige them. He resigned his office, with Agriculture Minister, Sigurdur Ingi Johannson, taking his place. So, in Iceland, though technically no law was broken, public morality trumped narrow, moral-less legality. Unlike South Africa, the society is better for it.
But then, which society? The one in which laws are founded on well ingrained ethos, a pervasive culture that rewards and applauds decency but punishes and boos crookedness — and crookedness need not be codified by law. In other words, it is a society that is value-driven, has a strong sense of right and wrong, and is on moral auto-pilot to reward or punish. The laws, in such lands, are happy bonuses!
The point, therefore, is stark: even the most comprehensive and rigorous of laws are well too often subverted by a permissive culture that fudges and resorts to cants, when it should have strong repulsion for bad conduct.
That is the current tragedy of South Africa under Mr. Zuma. Indeed, by the President’s escape of impeachment, South Africa appears, value-and institution-wise, schizophrenic.
On one hand, the Constitutional Court, a bridge between the old apartheid era and democratic South Africa, appears robust and imbued with the right values for South Africa’s advancement. The law eventually failed but the court pushed it to its limit.
On the other, the post-apartheid Parliament appears stunted. Aside from the raw gold of Nelson Mandela’s first five years, and the rather antiseptic Thabo Mbeki years, it seems to have scandalously degenerated under Jacob Zuma. Imagine the president, after apologising, pledging a refund of state money and beating the impeachment wrap, declaring that he needed to check, with his accountants, how much state money he would refund!
With the rather dreary turn of events, President Zuma has a date with history. He should quit to save the ANC, Africa’s oldest democratic organisation. If he doesn’t, that party would have produced the seeds of its own destruction!
But Nigeria appears even worse than South Africa, if we were not to commit the grand hypocrisy of one who sees speck in the eye of others but ignores the beam in his own eyes.
Nigeria has been well represented in the Panama Papers global scandal, of politicians and public office holders floating shell companies to hide and launder public money. Right at its vortex is embattled Senate President, Dr. Olusola Saraki, in court to clear his name of allegations by the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) in the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).
Alleged to have floated such shells, in concert with his spouse, Toyin, Dr. Saraki claimed the investment under discussion were his spouse’s family inheritance and assets, insisting he wasn’t bound by law to declare such. But Mrs Saraki’s lawyers have countered the assets belonged to no family, but Mrs Saraki alone! That has introduced a rather intriguing angle to the matter, even as the Senate President appears more embattled.
But aside from occasional scandals, which of Nigeria’s former presidents can be brought to trial, even with prima facie cases? There appears, entrenched, a sickening culture of sacred cows, no matter how mired in muck.
This appears a stark contrast to Brazil, where former President Lula da Silva is being indicted for alleged sleaze. But again from Brazil has come the aberration of the sitting president, Lula’s former deputy, appointing him as presidential chief of staff to stave off the law!
With the current corruption trials, there appears a judiciary whose body language seems non-committal to dispensing justice with fairness and dispatch; lawyers, from the silks down, rather sold on crass technicalities to save clients with fat briefs than be the exemplars as priests in the temple of justice, and judges too happy and merry to subvert justice if the cash is right!
There is no substitute for the rule of law. But if it is skewed by unconscionable accused persons because, they are (wo)men of means, aided by racketeering lawyers and abetted by venal judges, the rule of law is in grave danger of willful self-subversion. That would be tragic indeed.
For Nigeria to enjoy the rule of law, therefore, it must first cultivate the culture that makes it thrive. That is the lesson from Iceland. We only hope it is not too chilly for our system to understand and cultivate.
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