Anwar: Oppostion Must Stay Vigilant

From Malaysiakini
By Terence Netto

Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said the role of the opposition in a liberal democracy was to stay vigilant against the abuses of executive power and move society towards poverty eradication and equitable distribution of wealth.

Speaking at the Dudley Senanayake memorial lecture in Colombo late last week, Anwar praised the former Sri Lankan leader for standing up for liberal democracy and for combating poverty in stints as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, particularly between 1965 and 1970.

Anwar essentially rehashed arguments on the philosophical bases of liberal democracy already familiar from his frequent iteration of them in international forums, but with one difference.

Instead of citing, as he habitually does, John Locke, the 17th century English philosopher who furnished the intellectual scaffolding for the erection of liberal democratic government, Anwar adverted to Albert Venn Dicey, a 19th century English theorist of the rule of law who was not only in favour of judicial remedy for executive abuse but also, it appears, for judicial activism, a different and more controversial stance.

A quotation from Dicey deployed by Anwar in the Senanayake lecture hints at the latter. Dicey said that “the rule of law is as valuable a principle today as it has ever been. For it means that the courts can see to it that powers of officials, and official bodies of persons entrusted with government, are not exceeded and are not abused, and that the rights of citizens are determined in accordance with the law enacted and unenacted.”

In this context, law “unenacted” must allude to the power of judges to make law, an issue of no small import in democracies where ordinarily the function of making the law is considered the legislature’s and that of interpreting it is the judiciary’s.

Theorists of the separation of powers are as wary of legislative overreach, which is the passing of laws having no constitutional warrant, as they are of executive abuse and of judicial activism, which happens when judges usurp the legislative function by creating rights for citizens from lacunae in the constitution.

Still, this was not the main thrust of Anwar’s argument in the Senanayake lecture, themed ‘The Role of the Opposition in a Liberal Democracy’.

Catering for the needy

Its gist was the opposition’s role as vigilant monitor of executive abuse, backed by an independent judiciary’s willingness to act as a check not only on executive abuse but also to review and restrain excesses of the legislature.

Anwar reiterated the usual platitudes on preventive detention laws having no place in a liberal democracy – Malaysia’s hoary, old and discredited Internal Security Act should be jettisoned – without saying how an opposition in a democracy would comport itself if government is menaced by a small and determined band of nihilistic terrorists, as Pakistan seems now.

Would it be in favour of preventive detention laws in the face of such dire threats, in which case constitutional principle would be at variance with practice, or would it insist on rendering the full panoply of due process to suspects?

Anwar’s reticence on this score was supplanted with exuberance on the necessity of liberal democracy to cater to the needy. He said it was no use if a liberal democracy cannot enable a market economy to produce growth, protect freedom, remove poverty and redistribute wealth.

He held that a “liberal democracy is meaningless without the state institutionalizing social safety net programs such as social security or social insurance.”

Ha added that “apart from fighting poverty and redressing other social inequities, we should never lose sight of the importance of supporting strong families, education, and protecting the environment.”

Anwar concluded by asserting the social democrat’s credo: “The paramount aim must be the attainment of a system which allows for a more equitable distribution of wealth, without which it is indeed a mockery to speak of freedom and democracy, whatever hardcore libertarians may tell us.