Mahavira Jain Vidyalaya Rajat Jayanti Mahotsava

Author(s): Mahavir Jain Vidyalaya Mumbai
Publisher: Mahavir Jain Vidyalay

Page 176

RULE OF LAW: THIRD PARTY JUDGMENT
By
T. K. SHAHANI, M.A.
PRINCIPAL, SAMALDAS COLLEGE, BHAVNAGAR
Inter arma leges silent.
"The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept."
---Shakespeare.
I. TOWARDS WORLD ORDER
The test of civilization is the triumph of Law over violence. The history of the social life of man through ages has been one continuous 'struggle for Law. Man has achieved a fair measure of success in that struggle so far as the relations of one individual with another within a State are concerned. Imagine a big lively inmate of a students' boarding-house belabouring a weakling only to give himself satisfaction for a supposed wrong done to him. The sense of the whole boarding-house would, presumably, revolt against the big boy's taking the Law in his own hands. He must refer the matter to the Superintendent or the Committee of management as the case may be. He is not allowed to be a judge in his own cause: he must have the point of his grievance settled by third-party judgment. That is the rule of Law in the boarding house without which no institution can work. This is the accepted fundamental principle of life that guides the conduct of civilised social man. There is also another principle which is a necessary adjunct to it. When the big fellow uses violence against the weakling where violence is supposed to be outlawed, those who are near by, cannot, possibly, remain tame spectators of this cruelty as mere neutrals. In the interest of that very law which makes their social life possible they will use all possible means to restrain violence. Coercion against the offender to prevent him from doing further mischief is a perfectly lawful course of conduct on such occasions. In this sense every citizen is a police-man. The English Common Law makes it a crime if neighbours or even passers-by give no adequate response to the 'Hue and Cry' raised to stop the burglar or the felon. Third-party judgment and non-neutrality are then the guilding principles of social conduct and civilised life in
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