Compensation undermines laws

 A MAGISTRATE in a committal court in Port Moresby felt compelled to tell law en­forcement agencies to discourage the use of compensation to avoid prosecution for serious criminal charges.

Waigani Committal Court Magistrate Cosmas Bidar last week warned the police not to close cases simply because the victim’s relatives had withdrawn their charges after being paid compensation.

For serious crimes such as murder and rape, the perpetrators must face the law regardless of whether they have shown remorse and have cooperated with police.

Paying compensation should never be seen as a pardoning of the offence by the victim or his or her family because justice has been undermined. At the same time, taking revenge after is the opposite end of the spectrum but just as wrong. 

In Papua New Guinea, a country that has its majority of people living in the rural setting, this practice usually holds sway simply because the law is not present throughout the villages and districts.

People in the rural areas are much less inclined to seek out the police if they can first resolve the trouble peacefully and amicably among themselves. 

But where does that leave the law and its precepts?

The most common way of resolving problems was to give the aggrieved party a payment in the form of valuable goods with the intent of easing tension and to make amends for a wrong committed on another. The more serious the offence, the bigger the payment. This practice may have sufficed in a traditional society but it cannot in modern PNG.

Bidar pointed out that when a person was charged with wilful murder it was an offence against the State and not the relatives of the deceased. 

He said a dangerous precedent was being set when police allowed criminals to walk free because those who had been wronged did not feel the need to seek justice by conventional means.

According to him that had the effect of not only undermining the law but cheapening human life or putting a kina value on suffering and loss. “We might be setting a precedent here because we are expecting compensation even when a life is gone,” Bidar said.

“We might come to a situation where police will lose interest in charging people with murder-related offences.”

He said if this practice was allowed to continue, money would be become the sole arbiter of crime and punishment.

In many regards, compensation demands are seen as an easy out for both parties who do not wish to go through the drawn out process of the courts. 

There are selfish reasons for wanting compensation by relatives of the deceased or injured party. It is not un­common for relatives to want to benefit from a loss in any way they can.

The danger here is that a murderer could conceivably go unpunished if society deems compensation an acceptable form of justice. 

All a criminal would need is sufficient funds to buy his or her way out. The prospect of such a practice taking root and becoming the norm is surreal to say the least and would directly lead to the breakdown of law and order and encourage anarchy in the masses of the poor who would not be able to obtain this brand of justice.

That warped sense of right and wrong is a crime in and of itself. 

Papua New Guineans must decide whether they want to live in a society where law and justice takes precedence over cultural be­liefs and practices or one where compensation demands can lead to justice taking a back seat.

This mentality is a threat to law abiding citizens everywhere and those who believe in the country’s laws and foundations of nationhood.

The onus is on the police and law enforcement agencies not to accept compensation as a means to an end and see that justice is served whenever and wherever possible.

Lawyers – defence and prosecution – have a responsibility to ensure that justice prevails in all matters they are called to and not allow the law to be weakened and diluted.

For progress to be made as a nation, and as a people, the law must be the only benchmark by which we measure ourselves and by which order and peace is maintained.