The opinion
published in the Star today that “It is absolutely right that we be
held responsible for what we post and say in cyberspace. But only if
we indeed are the ones who wrote and posted it” has its merits. He
mentioned that the new Evidence Act is quite scary and gave the
example that anything posted on, say, your Facebook account is now
your responsibility (as it should be, if you really did post it) and
the real scary part is: you are guilty until you prove yourself
innocent. The Act assumes you are guilty until proven innocent.
It might be a good idea to extent this
doctrine to other laws as well, for example crimes involving
corruption, murder and rape. Using this method, anyone can be charged
with corruption, and the accused has to prove that he is innocent.
His gain might be ten ringgit or ten million ringgit but the onus is
on him to prove that the money was received legitimately. The burden
of proof will be on the accused and he has to find the means and
evidence to support his claims.
It does save the public prosecutor's
time and money in gathering evidence when this doctrine is
implemented. He can cast his net wider so that more suspects can be
hauled up to the courts. In the meantime, the rest of us have to be
prepared for this eventuality and keep all our records intact for at
least seven years, similar to what is recommended for income tax
purposes.
We can even change all the laws such
that everyone is presumed guilty of everything from the day they are
born until the day they can prove themselves innocent. That is much
simpler, isn't it? The courts need not worry about being burdened by
thousands of unresolved cases as there is no perfect human being, as
far as I know. Everyone would be guilty of something or other. Case
closed, crime solved and a perfect record for the police and others
who monitor our lives.
The question now would be the innocence
of those who oversee our lives. If we assume everyone is guilty,
would they be guilty too? In this animal farm, there is only one
maxim that will be true, all animals are equal, but some animals are
more equal than others.
Image from project-middle-grade-mayhem
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