Mere imprisonment of corrupt not sufficient: CW legal experts

From: INDLaws.com

2/13/2011

13.2.2011 (UNI) Legal luminaries at Commonwealth Lawyers Conference at Hyderabad were unanimous that the corrupt should not be allowed to get away with the ill-gotten wealth and must be treated as human rights violators.
The conference attended by the Chief Justices and Judges of 10 Commonwealth countries was inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh early this week.
Speakers who included Chief Justice of India S H Kapadia were unanimous that mere imprisonment of the corrupt was not sufficient.
The consensus was that the corrupt officials and the beneficiaries of the corruption should not be permitted to reap the fruits of their misdeeds and upon conviction after a fair trial, their properties should be confiscated.

The speakers were also of the view that the corrupt should be regarded as human rights violators of the socio-economic rights of the people because funds meant for schools, hospitals, roads and other public welfare schemes were illegally stashed away in secret foreign bank accounts.

The corrupt must be socially boycotted and they should be exposed so that they are not able to show their faces in public and their names and photographs should be published and displayed at public places like railways stations, bus stops and airports etc.
According to the speakers the corrupt should be tried by fast track courts and an Indian delegate bemoaned the fact that no politician or minister had been found guilty or punished for corruption during 64 years of independence.
The views of the speakers at the two-day conference which was also attended by former Attorney General of India Soli J Sorabjee give vent to the pent up feeling of the common man who wants to see the corrupt public servants including politicians and bureaucrats behind the bars and may have wide ramifications for those involved in recent scams such as 2G spectrum, CWG, Adarsh Cooperative Society and ISRO as well as black money parked in foreign banks etc...


COMMENT: Excellent point! Corruption in all shapes or form in government must be treated as human rights violation. Elected public officials are entrusted with the keys of the country's coffers and should not use the opportunity to enrich themselves and allow their countrymen to be short changed. Here in Seychelles we have numerous cases of corruption at the highest level. It is only in Seychelles that you will find a minister squandering US$ 4.5 million and be rewarded with more responsibilities. It is only in Seychelles that you can bankrupt a country by over US$ 800 million and still maintain total control. It is only in Seychelles that the same government who squandered more than US$ 2.5 billion is still in power despite an IMF imposed bailout plan... But the people of Seychelles will have an opportunity to decide if the will have more of the same in May 2011!