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Being innocent victims
27/11/2000 The Star Articles of Law with Bhag Singh
Usually one merely uses the phrase "innocent victims" in general conversation.
The phrase is self-explanatory. An innocent victim is a person who suffers for
the consequences of something he did not do.
The recent decision of the Legal Profession Qualifying Board
to set aside this year's Certificate of Legal Practice (CLP) examination provides
a classic example of a situation where people become innocent victims and are
caught in a Catch 22 situation and are helpless.
If in the days ahead the decision is set aside completely
or in part, it will no doubt be of great comfort to those concerned, but they
will still have been innocent victims for the trauma they would have undergone.
If the entire decision is not set aside, the aggrieved who
may want to challenge the decision in the courts of law will be facing an uncertain
future given the time that it takes for litigation and appeal. If the decision
is against them they may face a situation where not only have they lost time
but they also have to go through the hassle of sitting for the CLP exam again.
The decision made to annul the results even if it is upheld
in part because there was a leakage of the exam questions is certainly unjust
to the students who studied diligently for the examination. A large number would
not have had access to the examination papers except on the day of the exam.
The fault clearly lies on those who prepared or kept the exam papers,; yet the
consequences fall on someone else.
While the annulment of the CLP examination has received extensive
publicity, the CLP students are not the only innocent victims in our society.
Every now and then incidents occur which are unjust to individuals. These peoples
are also sometimes unjustly treated by the system and it appears that there
is no law to protect them.
House buyers
Another example of innocent victims are house buyers who
find themselves unable to occupy the property they have purchased because the
Certificates of Fitness (CF) have not been issued by the relevant authority.
The house buyer suffers a loss because he has to rent another property to live
in and if the new property is to be rented out, he will suffer a loss in expected
rental.
In most cases the house buyer is told by the housing developer
that the CF cannot be obtained because of a delay on the part of the authorities.
When approached, the authorities will say that it is the housing developer who
has not complied with certain requirements.
These are all matters beyond the control of the house buyer
but because the way the authorities act and the law is structured, the housing
developer is allowed to receive almost the full purchase price based on certificates
which are issued to state the stage of developments of the building.
So, while the authorities and the housing developer conveniently
blame each other the house buyer is made to pay the instalments or interest
on a property that he cannot occupy through no fault of his own and those who
are to blame get away scot free!
Parking woes
Yet another instance where people end up being innocent victims
is when their cars are towed away by operators who are licensed by Kuala Lumpur
City Hall purportedly on the ground that they are causing obstruction. A person
who finds his car missing may think it is stolen, but later discovers that is
was towed away by City Hall operators.
While it would be justified for such actions to be taken
if a vehicle is causing obstruction, it is difficult to understand the towing
away of vehicles when there is no obstruction caused. Furthermore vehicles have
been towed away in areas where there is no sign to indicate that it is a tow
area.
Clearly the objectives of the operators in such instances
is to generate more income for themselves. The irony is that some operators
do not go to areas where there is acute obstruction and sometimes they themselves
cause obstruction while they park their tow trucks in the middle of the road
while having teh tarik by the roadside.
Thus it will seen that many people are innocent victims in
different situations in the way our system operates. Those who become victims
of floods, fires and land slides are often the victims of work not properly
supervised by contractors and consultants. These contractors and consultants
collect their fees when the work is completed and the public are left to suffer
the consequences much later and therefore become innocent victims.
Coming back to the CLP case, it serves as a reminder of the
many unjust situations which exist in our society. There have been instances
in school examinations where students had to re-sit certain papers. They are
innocent victims too but the matter did not receive such wide media coverage.
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