Several metaphors have been used to describe society and its workings. It was compared to human organism as well as to different technologies. Whatever the metaphor used, one thing is clear: it only works efficiently if there is balance between the different parts. Whenever one section becomes too powerful, the balance is lost and trouble ensues.

We need an effective system of checks and balances.

The police have an essential role; but give them a lot of power and society will be in danger of becoming a police state. Magistrates and judges are extremely important. Society gives them a security of tenure that it gives no one else. They practically cannot be removed. But even in this instance we need an effective system of checks and balances. Ours is unfortunately defective. There are incompetent members of the judiciary and now we have proof that there were corrupt ones as well. Besides, the history of the world shows us that all sorts of obscene policies and actions have been blessed and condoned by decisions taken in Court by some magistrate or judge.

Lawyers and lawyers

Lawyers are another important building block in our judicial and democratic system. However we have to accept the fact that there are lawyers and lawyers.

During a TV programme, I once asked a lawyer whether he would even resort to a technicality to free a client that he was certain was guilty of pedophilia. He said yes. I thought that he misunderstood me, so I pushed the argument further. "Let us say that you are certain that your client has on more than one occasion abused children. You are sure that he abused the child that he is being accused of abusing. Let us say that there is a mistake in the way that the accusation is made. It is a minor point which does not affect the truth of the matter, i.e. that you client is a pedophile. Would you use that technical point to throw a pedophile on the streets where he can abuse more children?" The lawyer did not bat an eyelid while immediately answering "yes". He was not the only lawyer who answered yes when I posited that same question.

The client of another lawyer told me a different story. He owed money and was taken to court. He went to his lawyer telling him that although he owed the money there was a legal way to get out of his obligations. The lawyer looked at him and said: "If you owe the money, pay it instead of trying to use the law to avoid fulfilling your obligations." The prospective client went to another lawyer who obliged.

Who is the better lawyer, the one who respects the letter of the law or the one who respects its spirit?

This does not subtract one iota from the great value and worth of the profession of lawyers, though evil tongues say that no shark has ever attacked a lawyer because members of the same profession never attack each other!

And what do you say about the journalists?

Then there are the journalists. There are journalists and journalists. However, most journalists are not independent professionals. They are employed with media organizations who generally are business concerns more interested in maximizing profits than serving the public interest. They generally justify what they do while confusing the public interest with what is of interest to the public. Journalists have their sins. Or, perhaps, let me make a mia culpa and write that we journalists have our sins. Character assassination, badly researched stories, plagiarism, lack of respect for the truth, the adulteration of editorial content for commercial reasons are just some of the sins of journalists.

However, we have our virtues too! Journalists have as important a role in our democratic system as police, magistrates, judges and, dare I write, lawyers. Were it not for the media in many countries the sex abuse stories would have remained a hidden secret. There were cases where judges made inquiries and saw no evil. Then thanks to journalists a cesspit was discovered. Corrupt politicians eluded justice but were ferreted out by journalists. Social injustices and inequalities that society preferred to believe did not exist were exposed by journalists. Need I add more examples?

Journalists have power, and their power like that of police, judges etc. has to be effectively checked. If this is not done we would have a state run by the media. This would not be much better than a state run by the police, or the judges or the lawyers.

The law does play a role in this checking process. The temptation to give excessive importance to legal control through draconian measures should be resisted. For this resistance to succeed, two things are needed. We need an effective system of self-regulation. Such a system is built on ethical more than legal principles. We also need a mature and discerning public.

Unfortunately both are sorely missing in many countries.