EDITORIAL : THE GUARDIAN, UK

     

 

Public service reform: A bungled police operation

The voters do deserve more of a say over the reforms, but the checks and balances must be got right

Rarely have two letters made such a big difference. By striking the e and r out of "commissioners" on Wednesday night, the House of Lords voted to do away with all talk of elected sheriffs, and to hand back the reins of policing to collective commissions, which is of course what the existing police authorities are. The assault was led by the redoubtable Lady Harris, ordinarily a most loyal Lib Dem.

The most immediate questions, therefore, were for Nick Clegg. Had the newly muscular liberalism he is proclaiming stirred a mutinous spirit which will not merely smooth harsh Conservative edges, but scupper the government programme? Injecting direct democracy into the force was, after all, the centrepiece of the whole police reform bill, and an idea David Cameron has pushed ever since it was dreamed up by his favourite thinktank. Moreover, quite unlike those troubled health service reforms, this was all clearly flagged in the coalition agreement.

The truth, however, is that the defeat had less to do with big picture politics, than the specific proposal at hand. Lady Harris rallied an ermine-trimmed army of former police chiefs and bishops to her cause, and moved some Tories to sit on their hands. All of them fear the proposed form of elections could sacrifice the venerable tradition of keeping the uniformed arm of the law clear of the partisan fray.

Experience in the US is littered with cautionary tales, such as the resignation of the highly rated New York police chief Bill Bratton after he appeared a little too successful for the taste of his mayor on the cover of Time magazine. And in London, where city hall exerts a distinctive governance role, Boris Johnson's shunting aside of the Metropolitan commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, was a scarcely happier affair. If individuals with the right to hire and fire top cops were voted on strict partisan lines all over the country, then we could be set on a road where would-be commissioners would end up flashing party membership cards around.

To acknowledge this danger is not to deny that there is an accountability problem. The Home Office might have fared better in the Lords if it had acknowledged the progress that has been made both through neighbourhood policing and the growing role of independents on the authorities. Even so there is some justice in the caricature of the last great unreformed public service. The Labour proposal to elect authority chairs grapples with the exact same problems as the jeopardised Home Office plans, which may now take years to implement.

The voters do deserve more of a say, but the checks and balances must be got right. The government treated them as an afterthought, and it is paying a heavy political price.

The media and the state: be careful what you wish for

If the press would rather people used self-regulation than the courts then it has to make sure that the PCC is a credible regulator

Parliament is currently, for the first time in 15 years, debating proposals to reform the libel laws. These laws, to our shame, have made London the forum of choice for the laundering of reputations, and in repudiation of them the American Congress has passed its own. You would never guess this from monitoring the British media, which is presently obsessed with a different threat altogether – the torrent of superinjunctions gagging journalists' ability to report on matters of high public interest.

This is a curious state of affairs, not least because it's not clear that a single superinjunction has been ordered against the media so far this year. A superinjunction is one whose existence cannot be reported – as happened when the oil traders, Trafigura, succeeded in gagging the Guardian in 2009 over the existence of a confidential report about toxic waste. It is easy to deplore those. The current bone of contention is actually anonymised privacy injunctions, in which the bare bones of the cases are published – but not the identities of those involved. This is a more difficult area.

The courts are doing what parliament asked them to do in passing the Human Rights Act. Judges balance article 8 (respect for privacy) with article 10 (free expression), paying special reference to the British media's codes of practice. The Press Complaints Commission code on privacy is virtually identical to the wording of the HRA, though it allows exceptions in cases of strong public interest, such as the exposing of crime. These cases often involve very difficult balancing acts. In a recent case, OPQ v BJM and CJM, the media dropped objections to a privacy order after hearing: a) that the parties involved had all agreed to one; b) that it involved "straightforward and blatant blackmail"; and c) that there was "solid medical evidence" about the dangers to the health of family members of the claimant that might result from publication. Few people would argue that making some sort of privacy order in these circumstances was totally irrational.

Some alleged details of some of these privacy orders surfaced this week on Twitter, which led to a startling dawn chorus of demands for urgent action. Some argued for a privacy law; others simply urged parliament to discuss privacy (in reality, hoping for an anti-privacy law); others wanted the regulation of Twitter; another variant was to urge "parliament, not judges" to decide the issues; others wanted to see a statutory regulator for the press.

Some of these are absurd. Who on earth, for instance, believes the British courts or parliament could regulate Twitter? What could a parliament-endorsed privacy law possibly say that would be more permissive than the PCC's own code while also being compatible with the balancing act required by the European convention on human rights? Can we really imagining renouncing the ECHR (and thus leaving the EU itself) over the right to spill the bedroom secrets of celebrities and sportsmen? Why do we imagine that parliament would wish to pass such a measure given the ongoing criminal and civil inquiries into the mass hacking of phones by elements of the press, and the feeble response to date of the industry's own regulator? By all means clamour for MPs to consider privacy, but be careful what you wish for.

Whatever the law, someone – either judges or the PCC, but not parliament – will end up making decisions on a case-by-case basis. If the press would rather people used self-regulation than the courts then it has to make sure that the PCC is a credible regulator. Failing that, it's difficult to object to the courts continuing to making case law on the basis of the facts and of the law as it stands. Editors can certainly object to the secrecy: if so, they must then play their part in demonstrating how to reconcile openness with privacy. Meanwhile there is rather more urgency about lobbying to improve the current proposals to reform our discredited libel laws.

In praise of … Peter Hyman

Hyman does not support all aspects of free schools, but he is not retreating from the challenge of making one work

"At least Thatcher was attempting to change things," Peter Hyman told the Guardian a couple of years ago, defending the radical cause against the frequent conservatism of party politics. "It angers me that political debate is so constrained that no adult dialogue can really happen." He knows about that, as a former Downing Street aide to Tony Blair, who unlike many people on the political inside decided not to search for the predictable winnable Labour seat and subsequent frontbench job but instead trained as a teacher. Hyman hasn't ducked out of politics entirely: he turns up on Newsnight and he has written a book about his experiences. But his immersion in a world beyond Westminster has been sustained. He's risen from teaching assistant in a London comprehensive to a deputy head. This week, he's announced plans for a new free school, to open in Newham, east London, using powers established by the coalition government. No doubt some will see this as a Blairite sell-out, a breach of the defences some teachers want to erect against Michael Gove's plans. This would be to make the very mistake Hyman identified in that Guardian interview: to put rigid, uncreative partisanship against the needs of radical policy. If free schools are to exist, it is right that they do more than allow middle-class parents in smart areas to escape the state system. Hyman does not support all aspects of free schools. But to his credit he is not retreating from the challenge of making one work.

EDITORIAL : THE GLOBAL TIMES, CHINA

Hillary's China censure a fool's errand

Although the Chinese foreign ministry on Thursday downplayed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's harsh comments on China's human rights record, her remarks did shock the Chinese public, particularly because the insult was uttered by America's top diplomat.

In an interview with the Atlantic magazine published Tuesday, Clinton said the Chinese government was "trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand."

This echoed her speech at the just-concluded China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue, in which she used "disappeared" to refer to the arrest of some Chinese lawyers and artists.

Although the Chinese government has made it clear that artist Ai Weiwei was arrested on charges of "economic crimes," Clinton's choice of words produced some misleading implications for her audience – Ai was abducted by somebody.

It is not rare for the US media to use whatever words they want in reporting about China's affairs. But it is unacceptable to hear Clinton, as the US secretary of state, insulting the Chinese delegates to their face.

Since the latest upheaval in the Middle East, some US politicians seem very optimistic over the prospect of Western-style democracy sweeping the world. They believe China will be next.
A sense of superiority has twisted the thinking of some US officials.

Pointing out China's problems is no surprise. But now they have begun to throw out insensitive words. We don't know if it was a slip-of-tongue by Clinton, or whether US officials believe they can hurl whatever insults they wish at China.

Clinton and other US officials may argue that they are criticizing China out of "sincere friendship," and that the Chinese may be oversensitive to criticism. But in the past, the US government has bristled over criticism by China.

Ye Xiaowen, former head of State Administration for Religious Affairs, published an article in a Chinese newspaper in 2007, criticizing then US president George W. Bush's military involvement in Iraq.

The US media reacted strongly, which resulted in the Chinese media outlet's withdrawal of the article from its website.

Chinese media is often labeled "nationalistic" when opinion-makers lash out at the US.

Nevertheless, we wish that senior American officials would learn some basic etiquette in their dealing with other countries.

As with relationships between  ordinary people, the basic rules of politeness will help people communicate smoothly and not enrage each other with irresponsible slurs. 

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY YOMIURI, JAPAN

      

 

Despite court ruling, MSDF needs better training program

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Yokohama District Court on Wednesday acquitted two Maritime Self-Defense Force officers over a fatal collision between an MSDF destroyer and a fishing boat in February 2008 that resulted in the deaths of two fishermen.

The two officers--one was on night duty aboard the Aegis-equipped Atago during the accident and the other shortly before--were charged with professional negligence resulting in the deaths of a 58-year-old fisherman and his 23-year-old son who were aboard the fishing boat Seitoku Maru.

The court ruling said there was no proof of a criminal act. This was a major setback for prosecutors, who failed to prove that the two officers were negligent.

The prosecutors submitted as evidence a navigational chart purporting to show the course of the Seitoku Maru up to the collision with the Atago, to prove it was the destroyer that should have taken evasive action under the relevant law.

The defendants, however, argued that the collision resulted from the fishing vessel's making an abrupt right turn.

The ruling said one of the most serious problems with the prosecutors' case was their reconstruction of the presumed course the Seitoku Maru had taken.

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Insufficient evidence

The judge rejected the credibility of the navigational chart presented by the prosecutors and the assertion that the law called for the Seitoku Maru to take evasive action to avoid the collision.

During the trial's cross-examination of witnesses, a captain of another fishing boat said, "I think they [the prosecutors] created it [the chart] arbitrarily."

The prosecutors obviously failed to gather sufficient evidence to prove the guilt of the two officers, especially as the exact course the fishing boat took was unknown as its global positioning system device was lost at sea.

The ruling also said the two MSDF officers failed to mount a sufficient lookout during night duty. The officers changed shifts about 12 minutes before the collision.

Although the two officers were found not guilty as individuals, the MSDF cannot evade the responsibility that one of its ships was involved in a collision.

In 2009, a marine accident tribunal said the main cause of the collision was the Atago's failure to keep an adequate lookout. The Defense Ministry also admitted in a report that the Atago's lookout system was inadequate.

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Fundamental duties neglected

The Atago is a state-of-the-art Aegis-equipped destroyer that entered into service about one year before the collision, and was equipped with a top-level radar system.

No matter how superbly it was equipped, a vessel may end up being involved in an accident if crew members neglect their fundamental duties to ensure safe navigation. That lesson should be learned from the case.

The collision occurred in waters crowded with vessels off Boso Peninsula in Chiba Prefecture. To prevent a similar accident, how MSDF ships navigate in such waters as well as the rules of the sea must be thoroughly discussed.

Besides this case, the MSDF has been involved in a number of other incidents, such as the leakage of classified information of the Aegis naval air defense system and a fire on a destroyer when it was in port. These incidents led to a large number of MSDF officers being punished.

The MSDF is in the process of recovering the public's trust.

Now that the court has handed down its ruling, it is time for the MSDF to consider putting its members through a more stringent retraining process.

Govt must take on its share of N-compensation

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The government on Wednesday compiled a framework for paying compensation over losses related to the crisis at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture.

However, the content of the framework leaves much concern about whether sufficient compensation can be made for the damage inflicted.

The amount that TEPCO cannot pay will be temporarily shouldered by the central government, and TEPCO will have to repay the state in installments at a later time. It now seems likely that affected people will be compensated.

The obligation to compensate people for losses in principle rests with TEPCO, and therefore it is natural for the utility company to make its utmost effort in this regard.

However, we question the fact that TEPCO has to in effect shoulder an unlimited amount of compensation. If this point is left unchanged, TEPCO's management strength will soon give out, interfering with the payment of compensation and the stable supply of electricity.

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State's burden insufficient

The government also bears responsibility in this crisis, for promoting nuclear power. It must introduce a system in which the state satisfactorily shares the burden if the total sum of compensation exceeds a certain amount.

The compensation framework was compiled mainly by Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Banri Kaieda and others.

Initially, the government will establish a new organization through which the government and the electricity industry will financially support TEPCO's compensation scheme. A special type of government bonds will be used to procure funds for the new organization, and the amount used for compensation will be repaid by TEPCO over a long period of time.

TEPCO is urged to implement thorough internal restructuring measures to squeeze out funds for compensation.

The company has already decided that top management officials will return or forgo part or all of their yearly salaries and regular employees' pay will be cut by 20 percent.

It is natural for the company to take such measures, as it has caused a serious crisis and is seeking the government's help.

Electric power companies other than TEPCO will also contribute funds to the new organization. The Fukushima No. 1 plant crisis involves them as well, and it is wise to set up a system to accumulate funds in preparation for emergency situations.

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Do more than law stipulates

The problem with the latest system is that the government's share of the burden is quite limited.

Under the Compensation for Nuclear Damages Law, the state provides up to 120 billion yen per nuclear power plant for accidents caused by earthquakes or tsunami. In the Fukushima Prefecture case, the government's share of the burden of compensation is essentially limited to this amount.

The government has repeatedly emphasized that it, too, is responsible for compensation related to the accident. If so, it should step forward and take up a greater burden.

The nuclear compensation law also stipulates that the state shall be entirely responsible for paying for losses resulting from "abnormally large natural disasters."

If the losses caused to the agriculture and fisheries industries by groundless rumors is included, the total amount of compensation will certainly reach into trillions of yen. The government is not acting responsibly if it leaves most of the burden on TEPCO and the electricity industry alone.

EDITORIAL : THE HINDU, INDIA

Will finance get the message?

The conviction of Raj Rajaratnam, a billionaire financier and founder of the Galleon Group, one of the world's largest hedge fund management firms, by a New York federal court jury on five counts of securities fraud and nine of conspiracy to commit fraud between 2003 and 2009 sends a clear message to the financial markets. It is that they are not above the law and that white-collar crime is still crime. The New York jury, which deliberated for 12 days, rejected Mr. Rajaratnam's defence that the detailed “mosaic” of information given him by high-level contacts within companies amounted to a legitimate strategy. Mr. Rajaratnam faces a minimum of 15 years and a half in prison; he will appeal, but under a $100 million bail arrangement he is electronically tagged and remains under house arrest until his sentencing on July 29. Out of 47 people charged with insider trading in the last 18 months, he is the 35th to be convicted. In Galleon-related cases, 21 out of 26 defendants have pleaded guilty, including Danielle Chiesi, formerly of Bear Stearns, Intel's ex-staffer Rajiv Goel, and IBM's former executive Robert Moffat. The question is whether prosecutors will now go after other big fish who went to the edge of the law in dealing with Mr. Rajaratnam.

As for insider trading, it is significant that the Federal Bureau of Investigation has used anti-mafia techniques like wiretaps to good effect. Corporate lawyers may be right that the biggest successful Wall Street prosecution since the Milken and Boesky scandals of the 1980s will have a “chilling” effect on the way financial trading is done but that by itself will not address the wider issues. The fact that many of those convicted were, at the time of their crimes, working in some of the world's most powerful financial companies will only serve to deepen public distrust of the financial sector. Suspicion is already widespread as a result of the 2007-08 global crash and the failure of the massive state-funded bank bailouts to deliver the promised economic revival. Furthermore, criminal investigation, by its very nature, takes place ex post facto, and its deterrent effects are uncertain, depending on the perceptions of risk under the circumstances. That, together with the complexity of the financial sector, means that the moral effects of high-profile convictions may fade under the relentless pressure to make big bucks quickly. Criminal prosecutions in this area cannot replace well-designed and resolutely implemented regulatory legislation. That, however, will require political will of a kind few countries seem to have in the current climate, however much the public supports such action.

The Bhopal buck stops here

The Supreme Court's decision to reject as “wrong and fallacious” the curative plea filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation in the Bhopal case has led to a lot of unnecessary hand-wringing by NGOs and activists. The government sought to enhance the culpability of those responsible for the December 1984 gas disaster from mere “criminal negligence” — for which they were convicted last year — to “culpable homicide not amounting to murder.” In dismissing the government's petition, the Supreme Court concluded that its 1996 verdict, which threw out the culpable homicide accusation, was the product of evidence presented at the time charges were framed. But it also told the CBI that if there were additional facts to conclude that a more serious offence had been committed, nothing would stand in the way of the sessions court framing graver charges. Should the sessions judge have reservations, especially given the passage of time, the Supreme Court has indicated that its 1996 verdict would not be a “fetter” against delivering justice to the victims of the calamitous gas leak. If the Chief Judicial Magistrate misread its earlier judgment as constraining, the revisional court “can certainly correct” that error, the highest court in the land has noted.

The CBI's inability to credibly explain why it moved the Supreme Court so many years after 1996 – or after 2002, when the instrumentality of curative petitions was created – hides an open secret that continues to shock all partisans of justice round the world. The truth is that successive administrations at the Centre, whether headed by the Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party or the United Front, have not been interested in the guilty being punished. Equally damningly, they have cared little about justice being done to the victims. Once again, the ball is back in the government's hands. It is too early to say whether the beginning of the end to a long wait for justice has been set in motion for the victims of the Bhopal tragedy through the Supreme Court's verdict. All eyes will now be on the CBI: will it push for enhanced charges at the sessions court now that the legal picture has become clearer? It is up to the Madhya Pradesh and central governments to ensure that this matter is argued expeditiously and that any appeals which follow are fast-tracked. Later this summer, the petition seeking enhancement of compensation for the victims will be heard. Although the Supreme Court cannot easily conjure up a remedy for the manifest failure of the executive to protect the rights of the gas victims, it needs to remain engaged with the case until justice is finally delivered.

EDITORIAL : THE DAILY STAR, BANGLADESH

            

 

Sordid tale of a lake

We need some answers

EVERY good action is rendered meaningless unless its effects are constantly monitored and guarantees are in place about follow-up measures needing to be taken. That, however, does not seem to be happening in a whole lot of areas in this country. One has only to go back to the three front-page pictures of the Suvadda lake in Keraniganj appearing in Thursday's issue of this newspaper. Like so many other water bodies and other public places that have gone clean out of public hands through encroachment of various sorts, this lake was a source of worry for citizens back in 2005. It was so because a dumping of waste and rubbish had as good as caused the death of the lake.

But then something of a cheering note happened nearly three years later. In June 2008, environmentalists in particular and citizens in general celebrated the revival of the lake, an achievement brought about through the efforts of the caretaker government then in office. It was the public expectation that thenceforth the lake would flow uninterrupted and to the satisfaction of the residents of the area. That, unfortunately, was not to be. Observe the third picture this newspaper printed yesterday. The old dismal scene of garbage clogging the lake is back in place. The desolation we thought had gone for good three years ago has returned and the authorities are blissfully unaware of what has happened.

Our question now is simple: if this is the fate befalling Suvadda lake, are we to suppose that whatever public resources or property have so far been retrieved from individuals and groups of insidious intent will go back to square one? Given the indifference of the authorities, they may and perhaps they will. Even so, may we ask those authorities why they have been remiss in doing their job and what they mean to do now that they have been shamed publicly? We wait for answers.

Highway safety concern

Take WHO report seriously

RISING toll of fatalities due to road mishaps has impelled the world Health Organisation (WHO) to launch a road safety programme- internationally. Admittedly, Bangladesh's highways are highly accident-prone with a casualty figure at 5, 000 annually according to the government estimate. But the figure provided by the WHO is three to four times higher. The gap in figures is attributable to the fact that many fatal road accidents often go unreported.

Ours are among the most accident-prone highways in the world. And the death toll on the roads beats the fatalities from malaria. Now that the issue has caught a UN body's attention, it is expected that the government would draw on its programme to enhance public awareness about road safety as well as take effective measures to reduce the growing number of deaths on highways.

Before addressing the concern, the first step would be to identify the primary causes of fatal accidents. The WHO has focussed more on the physical flaws in infrastructures. The roads and highways with their inherent construction defects, narrow width and too many twists and turns are undoubtedly a major source of accidents. Redesigning and reconstructing the defective roads with the help of UN programme will contribute significantly towards ensuring road safety. At the same time, raising the awareness level of the road users, especially of the drivers, passengers and pedestrians is also a major area of concern. Skill of the drivers and condition of the vehicles running on the roads also demand serious attention given that there are many inexperienced drivers with fake licences and unfit transports.

Costs of treating and rehabilitating the seriously injured victims are an issue. Damage to property, lost output, medical and human costs eat up around 1.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according a government estimate. The cumulative impact of the road mishaps makes it a very vital area of national concern and must be addressed in earnest.