Rule Of Law And Anti-Corruption: Challenge And Opportunity
Nihal Sri Ameresekere
Historical Perspective
Historically man ruled human society, including involving the ugly spectre of slavery, with the hapless poor merchandised into slavery; a practice condemned and rejected by contemporary human society. Of course, historically there have been women too who ruled in such bygone eras ! Social behavioral order in human society was then upheld, maintained and enforced through means of such leadership; whether it was tribal or community leaders, or council of elders, or kings or rulers, it is they, who, through their pronounced ‘dicta’, laid down, as to how human society should behave and function, whilst being governed by them. The ‘king shall do no wrong’ was an accepted norm at one time during human civilization – though King Herod’s ‘dicta’ recorded in the Christian Bible came to be condemned universally, as atrocious and unacceptable by mankind !
Through the passage of time, the concept of the ‘rule of law’ gathered a momentum of inertia in human society, with the law formulated by human society, themselves, emerging as supreme, whereby, whether it be the ruler or those being ruled, were all alike before the law, and were all ruled by the law and were below the law; resulting in the growth of the concept of the ‘rule of law’ and its supremacy. Accordingly, human society progressively became to be ruled by the law, and not by man or woman. Those being charged with the governance of human society were cast upon with the sacred task to enforce the ‘rule of law’, to maintain social order and behaviour in human society; with punishments as per the law for disobedience or breaking the ‘rule of law’.
The basic tenet, vis-à-vis, the ‘rule of law’ and corruption, has been recorded in Sri Lankan history, as far back as 300 BC, when the famous Indian Emperor Asoka’s son, Ven. Mihindu Thera, advented into Sri Lanka, to propagate the philosophy of the emancipated Buddha, he preached to the then King Devanampiyatissa of Sri Lanka thus – “Oh mighty King, all the resources you perceive in the kingdom, do not belong to you, but such resources belong to all the people of the kingdom – you are merely the trustee of all such resources, and stand duty bound to deal with such resources in trust for and on behalf of the people of your kingdom”; thus even the King became inherently accountable to the people.
In contemporary civilized human society, such historic concept so preached, as far back as 300 BC, has come to be accepted – that the resources of human society belong to the people of such human society, and that those in governance of the people, so govern such resources, in trust and for and on behalf of such people, and are accountable to the people.
