"Common sense often makes good law."
-- William Orville Douglas (1898-1980),
American jurist, associate justice US Supreme Court

Last week almost every single souls in Malaysia were talking about penahanan rakyat Malaysia yang berkewajipan menghadiri PLKN tetapi berbuat sebaliknya, Ahmad Harizal Ahmad Fauzi. There have been a lot of complaints from rakyat2 prihatin lain condemning government for punishing this 18 y old school drop-out merely for choosing to help out his very poor family instead of going to PLKN to 'membina his jati diri'.

I agree that it could have done good to him sekiranya dia pergi 'membina jati diri' nya di PLKN, and I'm saying this simply because I think he could have learned something dan boleh bawak keluarga dia keluar dari kepompong kemiskinan, sebab tanpa orang yang menyedarkan manusia (manusia ni lupa dan lalai), kita takkan berubah. Regardless lah on whether or not PLKN has done any good to anybody. But the issue is not as simple as that.

He is a poor boy. Did not sahut seruan membina jati diri dek kerana kemiskinan dan lebih perlu bantu keluarga yang mana pendapatannya hanya RM20-30. He was deemed as a law breaker for not attending the 3 months camp, and was detained instead as he could not pay the RM600 denda. We are talking about an 18 year old from a small kampung! Arrested and charged by the authorities, and he was unrepresented in court. Talk about justice?!!

I am a firm believer that undang2 tak kenal sesiapa. If u give exception too much to the law, soon, exception will be the law. We should never let that happen. Sure, kene ade faktor2 lain pengaruhi pelaksanaan undang2, but in the end, kite tak boleh biar undang2 tak dilaksanakan. Atau masyarakat akan naik daun, and think that exception could always help law breakers to break free. People believes that PLKN law is one crappy law and breaking it is a stupid matter compared to para perompak, perogol etc etc yang masih berkeliaran bebas. But law is still law. Obedience is a must.

What masyarakat are really mad about is the fact that this boy is a very poor one, and doing such to him (despite him being a so-called law breaker) is very cruel dan masyarakat amat bersimpati. Why not anak2 orang kaya yang jadi 1st victim? Why him? Nak kasi pengajaran? But what about ribu2 others? Columnist Awang Selamat said his newspaper refused to carry Ahmad Harizal's name and photo because Utusan feels it's utterly unfair to jail the 18-year-old boy who was not able to pay a RM600 fine and exposing his identity will only add to his trauma. Awang said, "Kita tidak boleh membiarkan ketidakadilan terus berulang kerana pesalah yang tidak mampu bayar denda terpaksa dipenjara."

Sememangnya ignorance of law is not excusable tapi dalam undang2 masih ada ruang untuk mitigation dan disinilah saya rasa masalah utamanya. Apa judge tu tak belajar Jurisprudence kah? He did not have to simply follow the law membuta. He could have used his discretion and be more considerate terhadap this poor boy. And my Mr.D was rambling about this being AG's fault for prosecuting without investigating the pros and cons of the situations.

Okay I may not be an expert in law, but I have learned some from very very amazing educators, dan dari ilmu yang cetek ni, in a nutshell, saya berpendapat bahawa undang2 perlu dihormati dan dilaksanakan, tetapi pelaksana undang2 perlu jadi lebih humane, dan think outside the box. Itulah gunanya wujudnya keperluan dan kemudahan discretionary power. For more interesting comments from experts and public, click here.