Abdul Aziz Al-Sammari
Al-Jazirah
Special exemptions in a law and its misuse often create doubts about the law and its effectiveness. People would be suspicious about a new law especially after seeing excesses committed as a result of exemptions in a previous law and believe the new law’s fate would be the same.
For example, the government implemented the Anti-Corruption Law, which contained several exemptions weakening its effective implementation. That law’s failure has left a negative impression among people making them doubtful about the new law’s credibility.
I still remember the statement made by a religious scholar or mufti a few years ago. He said he issues special religious rulings or fatwas for some personalities and he would tell them not to publish those fatwas as they are not meant for public consumption.
This statement represents a strange moral system opening doors for people to evade and sidestep rules and regulations. These scholars issue tough fatwas for the public, expanding the prohibition wall even to the allowed areas to have greater control to issue special fatwas for special persons. Recently the government passed the white land tax bill, whose declared objective was to stop monopoly of unused land and increase the cost of those who keep them. The tax was supposed to force realtors to develop their property and then sell them to others.
This will increase the supply of developed land in the market and help people purchase plots to build their private homes.
Despite all these factors, people still doubt whether the law will be implemented on all realtors without exemption. If authorities fail to implement the law on all people, the white land law would have the same fate of the Anti-Corruption Law.
Now the question is how to safeguard the society’s moral system? Have we realized the danger posed by the collapse of moral system? During the past decades we have witnessed several collapses and cracks on the religious wall and how prohibited things have become lawful.
Before trying to find an answer to the above question we have to see the larger picture and understand that the unjustified exemptions led to the collapse of the law in the short run and that of the moral system in the long run. Our society needs a lot of transparency in this modern age in order to heal the rift on the moral system and restore public confidence in it.
When a law to combat corruption and another to prevent real estate monopoly is passed, authorities should implement them transparently giving details of their implementation and opening the door for experts to review the system. They should inform the public that the law would be implemented on all people without any exemption.
If there is any humanitarian exemption it should be explained in separate clauses of the law. This will help us bring respect to our laws and safeguard our moral system from further deterioration.
