Until this time around last year, I used to subscribe to the view that mob justice, especially on suspected thieves, however aggrieved one was, was never a solution to a slow, if not, a failed justice system. That was until I came face to face with the face of evil itself when my colleagues and I were confronted by over 25 panga-wielding men of the night: robbers.
In the immediate aftermath of that incident, the little sympathies I had for thieves who found themselves at the mercy of mob justice disappeared and I found myself one of the foremost proponents of mob justice. Time, of course, has mellowed down my feelings but I still find myself confused. I don’t know whether mob justice has merits at all or, indeed its ugly side.
The police, especially, have been quick to promote the ugly side of mob justice as they claim — rightly or otherwise — that it takes away the element of justice from the suspects. But, somehow, I suspect the police have another good reason for campaigning against mob justice and that scares me.
There have been cases — documented or otherwise — of people who have been killed or maimed in the heat of administering mob justice. The police, of course, have, in some few instances, arrested the ‘mobsters’ and a few of these have faced the law and convicted for taking the law into their hands.
But, as I suspect, the reason why the police discourage mob justice is not on account of their passion to see justice done. We have had cases too numerous to mention of suspects who have died in police cells because of ‘sanctioned police torture’ and there’s hardly any justice in that. Mob justice takes the pleasure off the police to toy around with the suspects themselves.
About two years ago, one of my friends (he’s no thief — at least, he hasn’t been caught yet!) found himself at the mercy of the law enforcers for a crime which should haven’t been a crime at all. He had gone to some entertainment joint and the crime he committed was to have asked for his change from the gatemen who seemed rather reluctant to do so. Naturally, he hit the roof.
A policeman, who had been hired by the place’s owners, appeared from wherever he had been hiding and hit my friend in the face with the butt of his gun. Dazed with the impact, he staggered a bit and made the mistake of bumping into the policeman who found himself sprawling on the floor the next moment.
The next thing my friend knew, he was handcuffed and hauled off to a police cell where, for the next 24 hours, one police officer after another came to challenge him to a fight. He politely refused their offers but by the time he came out of the cell, he had a lacerated back, the scars of which he still bears to date. How different is that from mob justice?
Indeed, how different from mob justice is the case of Emmanuel Chibwana, a journalist with Zodiak Broadcasting Service, whose face was disfigured by a police still arrogantly marketing itself as a reformed police?
I’m not too sure what the so-called police reform programme involved because other than putting up buildings here and there, I feel the whole exercise was a waste of money.
Former president Bakili Muluzi changed the name of the Malawi Police Force to Malawi Police Service because the former was intimidating and not suitable for its image but has anything really changed? Would dressing a lion in a sheep’s skin, without changing its ‘lion-ness’, make it meek? I doubt it.
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