For the past 40 years the country has been governed
legalistically i.e. passing laws to entrench controls of the
population overriding people's larger interests:-
(1) ISA and press licensing laws and non-disclosures of essential
investments and other information needed by the public to demand
greater accountability and transparency in government
performance.
(2) Amendments to judiciary system and criminal intercutory and
burden of proof procedures. Abolition of jury trial thereby
curtailing the independence of the judiciary affecting the fairness
of trial especially in political defamation cases.
(3) Overriding of people's freedom and right of speech and
political participations with entrenchment of political control
through ISA even after cessation of communist threats in the
1980s.
(4) Increasingly draconian laws depriving citizens' constitutional
rights : chewing gum law, petrol-filling law, press-lincensing law,
and all the tax-and-recover systems to corporatise essential
government services to fullest market prices and charge the highest
fees.
(5) Curtailing of constitutional rights of citizens to elect their
best candidates under the one-man-one-vote system e.g. using GRC in
the name of minority racial representation to stay in power.
(6) Increase the ministers' salaries to world's highest paid
ironricebowlers despite people's strong objection without
substantiation of benchmarking of salaries on equitable
apple-to-apple comparison.
(7) Repeated denials of major problems and failures at
restructuring the old-model pro-foreign early-year economic policy
to one which will bring about value-adding technology-driven
model.
It is very clear that the system is too legalistic adopting the
belief and assumption that as long as the leaders are able to get
laws passed in parliament to get what they want, every problem can
be solved. Is there any social and cultural vibrancy being produced
by such legalistic laws to motivate and empower people to support
the right set of policies?