Judiciary should serve ordinary people

KODUTHEBE OTTO MOTLOGELWA | Friday May 24, 2013 00:00

It is not only now that this attempt is made to deceive the poor working class into believing that despite the contradictory class interests in our society the state represents every citizen on equal basis. History has it that in ancient Athens, of Greece, Socrates, the Greek philosopher was once brought before the court of law charged for corrupting the minds of the youth by orientating them to develop enquiring minds that posed inconvenient questions onto the authorities. In his defence Socrates asked the jury as to who made the law and they replied that it was the state.

He further asked as to who made the state and they replied that it was man. Perplexed, Socrates asked the jury, which was obviously composed men, as to whether it was possible for them to commit adultery with their own wives which they replied in the negative. Socrates then asked the jury how, possibly, could he, being man and making the state, the state makes the law that is against him. It is at this point that class content of the state was un-masked. Even in our state today the class content and contradiction is still at the core of governance.

A lot of writers and ordinary citizens have expressed displeasure at our justice system, precisely that, it is normally members of the lower classes who get convicted for crimes in the courts of law while members of the upper classes always walk out of the courts as free men and women.

The issue here is that the expectation of equal justice for people of different classes, the major two of which, are actually contradictory is like expecting heaven out of hell. In any class society the state represents the class that controls the state power, which in our case, is the class of the rich people. The state is created to protect the rich and their property against the poor. It protects the employers against the employees with the full acknowledgement of the fact that they continuously and unfairly appropriate wealth from the workers. The state comprises of, as its apparatus of coercion or implementation of its class interests, the courts of law, the police, the prisons and the army, with the intelligence service as the heart beat of the system and the supreme commander as the state president.

Historically, it is the intelligence service that ensures the collection of information and its analysis about individuals and opponent organisations, and makes recommendations, to the president, as to what action to take in a given situation. It is the CIA in the USA, MI5 in the United Kingdom, Mossad in Israel, Boss of apartheid South Africa and DIS in Botswana that were and still are responsible for the protection of the class interests of the rich. It is through the agents of these services that threatening opposition parties are infiltrated and disorganised.

Any threat to the class interest of the rich in Botswana is, by extension a threat to the class interest of all rich people in all the capitalist countries since ours is just an agent of the multinational corporations. It is the state president who chooses and appoints the pinnacle and top brass of the judiciary which therefore is, accountable to the president and further the class that he represents, and in this case the class of the rich who are the directors of banks and multinational corporations. These are the hard facts about the practical reality of what the state is in a capitalist political economy and God plays no role in this situation. It is the intelligence service that makes sure that every component of the state apparatus plays its role to letter and best wishes of the president.

The mystery surrounding the usual acquittal of high profile people in cases that could be seen as serious crimes against the nation can be better understood from the point of view and perspective of their class position as members to whom the state is accountable. It is the obligation of the various state apparatus to ensure that these people do not go to jail because it was initially not meant for them, and this confirms why our justice is so expensive, if one does not have enough money the prison doors are normally open for their accommodation.

It is by mere luck that the ordinary people benefit from the protection by the state apparatus because they supply the work force that builds these apparatus. The capitalist system ensures that there is a pool of un-employed who are conscripted into these apparatus by poverty so that they become reliable servants of the system, conscripted, because if one is unemployed and it is only the police and the army that can offer employment.  It is out of fear of poverty that one goes to enroll, quite aware that one is going into  a career that was never one's choice.

These are more hard facts about the ruthlessness of the state in a capitalist political economy and no body should expect a long prayer to change the situation as the capitalists also have their long prayer to perpetuate this ruthlessness from which they benefit the life of luxury surrounded by poverty.

I should not be misunderstood to be advocating for a stateless society as the whole world society has been so corrupted that it needs state intervention in the interest of the poor majority, but for the intervention to succeed the state must be controlled by the workers.

This should not seem far-fetched as the workers are not only capable of running their affairs but also battle with the laws of natural science to produce their own livelihood. A simple example is the invention of the 'cell phone' which is a product of the workers and has liberated a lot of them from the stresses of communication.

If the workers can create a condition in which a voice can be sent through the air for some thousands of kilometres  what would be difficult for them to create a state that would bring a political economy that would ensure a fairer justice system than the chaos that is stressing the ordinary citizen today.   I have no reason to be apologetic about propagating this understanding as I believe I live only once and this is the only chance I have to let my views be known as a product of this chaotic situation. Amen!