LAW UNTO THEMSELVES: Lawyers must know their law (AP)

The theory that the recent bomb blasts in courts in Uttar Pradesh are retaliatory strikes by terrorists against lawyers shows how a part of our society is unwittingly getting caught in the game terrorists play. Lawyers of the district court in Lucknow assaulted three men accused of plotting to abduct Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi. In Faizabad, where the case of the attack on the Ram Janmabhoomi in 2005 is being heard, the court had to appoint an officer to defend the five accused because no lawyer agreed to do the job. In Varanasi too, the bar council resolved not to defend Waliullah, the prime accused in the 2006 Sankat Mochan terror attack.

Law recognises no presumption. Every accused has a right to fair trial, and every accused is only an accused until found guilty by trial. This distinction is not too fine to be lost on lawyers who refused to defend the terror accused. If lawyers take a collective decision to not defend a certain kind of accused, it puts them at a remove not only from civil society but also from what they are supposed to practise and uphold: the law. And if they also try to punish the accused, they come within an uncomfortable ideological proximity to terrorists. A thin but clear line separates those who favour from those who oppose terror. The line must not blur.

This operates in so many areas of goodwill and good intentions. Whether trying to stop malaria, AIDS or getting vaccines to the sick, you have got to think first if there is a road to get to one of the clinics for a bicycle or on the back of a donkey.

(Businessworld Issue 04-10 Dec, 2007)