Lo Legal Es Lo Correcto
Time and again, I have heard men and women from different positions and roles argue that something must be done because it is legal, because there is a collective agreement, an approved section, a law or a policy that establishes it; Although, when they ask themselves questions, they realize themselves that such a thing is impossible. Ironically, they attack that conclusion again, saying, “You have to do it for me because it`s the law.” The argument advanced by critics of civil disobedience is nothing more than an appeal to the means of citizen participation by which laws can be changed. However, if these new authoritarian democracies have cared about anything, it is to dismantle the effectiveness of these ways, leaving no choice but to break obediently with the body of law, and, if they press me without bearing the consequences, because it is right to receive punishment for breaking a law? Who is not considered as such? This is one of Arendt`s most appropriate notes in her concept of civil disobedience, pointing out that submission to these punishments responds only to religious memories that we still afflict, such as the ideal of self-sacrifice. Such a result, a kind of red card that pulls the country out of the “court of decency” by a criminal act, reflects the rot. In order to correct the evil, different levels of society have proposed alternatives that would theoretically promote social recomposition: An additional court? A referendum? Constitutional reform? These suggestions, certainly well-intentioned, place the patch where pain is not found. Colombia lacks moral leadership. In any community, “best-designed” control procedures are useless if those responsible are dishonest or cover their noses to ignore instinct. Groups need leaders who are beacons of decency. The correct behavior of presidents, governors, mayors and leaders of political parties, as well as that of the managers of all public and private organizations, is the model of decent behavior in any society. Morality transcends procedures and regulations.
An act is lawful if it falls within the scope of the legislative provisions. An action is moral if it meets a person`s standards of right and wrong. The legal has its “external” origin, based on what the applicable laws stipulate. Morality comes from the “inside”, from the inner self of each individual. Not everything that is legal is moral. Let`s explain this with an example, despite the banal. In September 2016, Colombia celebrated with luxury and sumptuousness the culmination of protracted negotiations on the peace agreement that was supposed to end endless years of violence. The signing of the final document with 2,500 guests cost more than 4,500 million pesos. There was certainly no fraud or under-table payments in the termination of event services, and the approvals for payments were, I assume, within the approval levels of the president`s office. Without a doubt, the whole process was legal. But such extravagance was not moral.
And this cannot be the case in a country where children die permanently of malnutrition and die sick at the doors of hospitals. The peace treaty was a patriotic undertaking. Its completion, however, may well have been an act of humility, not an act of arrogance. I don`t regularly attend religious ceremonies, but I often go to commemorations of human transitions – baptisms, communions, weddings, funerals. I always feel comforted when strangers on the bench in front of me shake my hand and say, “Peace be with you,” a greeting I gladly return. Such a thing could have been the signing ceremony of the peace agreement in Cartagena, perhaps at a mass in the church of San Pedro Claver, patron saint of slaves and defender of human rights. “Peace be with you, Mr. President, and with the whole country you represent,” the rebel commander might have said; “Peace be with you, Mr. Londoño, and with your rebel group, which will lay down its arms,” President Santos replied. It would not have been a pompous celebration, but it would have been an exemplary event. The great party in Cartagena was by no means worthy of the moral leadership that Colombian society needs.
Corruption problems start with the leaders. Every public servant should ask himself a simple question when approving a payment that has already undergone all the rigorous controls: “Is this a moral compromise?” It would be even better if the survey were conducted from the outset for each initiative. The decent actions that result from the sum of honest answers would undoubtedly put an end to the foul smells that afflict every government. GUSTAVO ESTRADAAutor from “Towards the Buddha of the West” I perceive that in the same position are the groups that demand that ministers solve problems in the first week of office that have been complicated or stagnant for years, but “it is not possible, and if someone could find a way to do it, That would certainly not be the right thing to do. Someone will say that it is fruitless to discuss whether the rule written on paper is right or not, or whether it is decency or even common sense. But sometimes something that feels right to us is illegal and sometimes something that is legal seems unacceptable. Mandatory voting, for example, is one of those old mandates that must be fulfilled, whether we like it or not, until the law is finally amended. The reactions that take place after it was discovered that the President of the Constitutional Court did not tell the truth when he passed the Senate, when he was appointed to his post, are a good example of the confusion in which our society is going, not distinguishing between legal and ethical© and implying that everything that is not prohibited by laws, is allowed or correct. This leads the debate to the “purely legal or technical©”, which is not suitable for those who are not familiar with the laws. Legal is not always the right thing to do.
Throughout history, we have seen real aberrations constructed and protected by legality. This was the case of the Holy Inquisition, an institution that, as a result of the union between monarchical and religious powers, tortured and murdered thousands of people in the Middle Ages simply because they had different ideas and conceptions, and accused them of heretics or demons. Society, the people, has the right to revolution, to a legitimate resistance that goes beyond what the government of the time calls legal or not. The people are the supreme and most independent power, the one who, with their revolutionary morality, must never recognize a government that rewards those who deceive and exploit while restricting the rights and freedoms of the most disadvantaged. A people should never allow their government to be the rule of corrupt and financial predators and do nothing to reduce them. And despite all this, it is the task of the people to disarm these authoritarian democracies as quickly as possible and to give a new lesson that the rule of law, like the constitution itself, are not completed constructions and that it is the collectivity, and only the collectivity, understood as the group of active minorities, that determines their future. Legal is not always the right thing to do. Throughout history, we have seen real aberrations constructed and protected legally. Is it possible, under the economic and social conditions of the country, to immediately obtain the answer or solution they demand? That`s where I came in.
