Reasons why the removal of former inspector general of police, Gen. Makur Marol, was against human dignity
By David Deng Chapath, Kampala, Uganda
March 20, 2017 (SSB) — In the society where the law is not operating properly, then people suffer. Law is the cement and foundation of the strong society. Society is collection of different communities who work in relation to achieve common goal.
Common goal is the ultimate aim of the society in which all the activities of the society are geared to. At greater level the country is a society. Hence, a country is supposed to be run in accordance with the law as agreed by members of society called a country at a greater level.
In fact, the Bill of Rights of the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan is a covenant among the people of South Sudan and between them and their government at every level and a commitment to respect and promote human rights and fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. This means that the Bill of Rights is the cornerstone of social justice, equality and democracy.
According to John Rawls, justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. As a general rule, a system however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.
In the society, each person possesses an inviolability founded on justice that even the welfare of society as a whole cannot override. For this reason justice denies that the loss of freedom for some is made right by a greater good shared by others.
Justice does not allow that the sacrifices imposed on a few are outweighed by the larger sum of advantages enjoyed by many. Therefore in a just society the liberties of equal citizenship are taken as settled; the rights secured by justice are not subject to political bargaining or to the calculus of social interests.
The only thing that permits us to acquiesce in an erroneous theory is the lack of a better one; analogously, an injustice is tolerable only when it is necessary to avoid an even greater injustice.
In South Sudan justice and fairness are not well understood, hence, people are suffering from injustice. Thus, the recent removal of the former Inspector General of Police, General Makur Marol was unfair as it was done contrary to the principles of justice and human dignity.
In reality up to date, I am still not happy with how General Makur Marol was removed from power. It should be noted that I am not against the removal but what I am against is the process and method of his removal due to the following reasons—
First of all, General Makur Marol was sent to Government Mission in Uganda and it was expected that the government would respect him until the time he completed the mission and then went back to Juba to brief the President on what his team and him had done.
However, the President just removed General Makur Marol while he was still on the mission of the Government, which brought into question as to whether the President understands the importance of government mission.
The way General Makur was removed was bad as he was removed in disrespectful way which shows that the President does not care about the welfare of the government officials working under him.
Secondly and related to the above point, the President removed General Makur Marol as if he is a thief or criminal or someone of whom he heard the news that was going to rebel against the government. It was undignified manner.
What the president should have done first was to wait for General Makur Marol first to come back to the country from Uganda where he attended workshop and after having been briefed the President, the President would have removed him without any problem.
Nonetheless, the way the President removed him was wrong and should have not been done against a person like General Makur Marol who has been in government services since 1970s.
In summary, I appeal to the President not to repeat the same action of removing the government officials who are on government mission. Though the President does not want to notify a government official but the removal should be done in such a way that it should not cause greater distress to the person being removed and above all it should not cause a greater damage to the government.
NB//: the author is South Sudanese student residing in Uganda and can be reached through: dengdavid00@gmail.com
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