Full Moon at Sunrise        Rex JMA Fernandez

A representative government as we and the United States have is inherently anti-democratic.

Democracy comes from a Greek word which is also very greek, meaning rule of the people.

If this has to be practiced, there would be necessity for each one of us to participate and decide upon each and every policy, law and statutes of our country.

If that would be the case in this country, there would be no law, policy or statute that will be passed.

Thus, the concept of a representative government is an administrative solution in coming up with the solution of the problem of mass rule.

Being administrative in nature, the solution is basically unjust and open for abuse.  Unjust, because we are placing a person who is suppose to speak in behalf of the majority of the people but does not submit his decision to a poll or a vote and thus, necessarily, his vote is his own decision.  But yet, it is considered that everybody voted like him.

This is also true for some principles and presumptions in law.  The principle that ignorance of the law excuses no one is a very administrative solution to a problem of abuse of this defense or excuse by anybody and which is unjust.

But let us take in consi-deration, a person who was born blind, deaf mute and poor.   He is a person and for all purposes and intent, he is ignorant not only of the law but nearly of many things.

Yet there is danger that somebody will use this excuse and he could not be refuted.  Nonetheless, should such danger justify the implementation of said principle of the man born blind and deaf mute and poor.

Every law is supposed to be printed in newspapers of general circulation and by that everybody is presumed to know the law.

Does everybody read newspapers of general circulation?   Wait, before that, does everybody know what is a newspaper of general circulation?

But not only that, the law is made and prepared by lawyers and under auspices where it is presumed that all laws relevant to the new law has been considered in enacting the law.  Thus, legal terminologies, concepts and principles are embedded and embodied in the law and not all persons understand the nuances, the principles and axioms of law that they can readily understand the law.

Thus, it would be unjust and there would be injustice in the application of that principle where ignorance of the law cannot be a defense.

As it is unjust to consider a congressman or a senator, the people’s representative when we come to think that our demography is that around 70 percent are people belonging to the C and D economic class and our senators and congressman are rich and very unlike the people they suppose to represent.

Another problem is to deny the commission of a crime is considered immediately weak and puts somebody with the said defense at a disadvantage.  This defends will turn around the rules on evidence, as it makes the one making the defense carry the burden of proving his innocence.

But then, there are really innocent people whose defense is really mere denial and they have no other defense and  they end up in jail.

Nonetheless, this outlook and concept is an administrative solution and will give birth to injustice.  Truth and justice are never evoked from a need to generalize an application to facilitate resolutions of problem.

Truth and justice are always matters of case-to-case application.*
 

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