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 Editorials | At Issue | April 2005 
Using The Name of the Law In Vain
 Kelly Arthur Garrett - The Herald
| Many have seized on the issue of populism - "populismo" in Spanish - to criticize Lopez Obrador.
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Did you wake up this morning to see a new era dawning outside your window?
Now that a Chamber of Deputies panel has voted to move forward with the removal of Mexico City Mayor Andrés Manuel López Obrador from the presidential race, could you feel the glorious rule of law settling in to dominate a bright and shiny Mexican future?
You're supposed to. The vote, PRI leaders tell us, was not against a candidate but “in favor of legality” and “the strict application of the law.” And all the impeachers of López Obrador, PRI and PAN, stayed faithfully on message during the media campaign leading up to the committee vote: “No one is above the law.”
In short, the vote by three politicians to eliminate their parties' most formidable opponent from next year's presidential elections was not political. Instead, we're told, it was all about the sanctity of the law.
There's only one possible response to this amazing assertion. As it turns ut, Ricardo Montalban said it best 25 years ago in a considerably more osmic context. As the wrathful Khan in Start Trek 2, the beloved exican-born actor, in full ham-villain mode, warned Admiral Kirk, “Don't insult my intelligence.”
We've all had our intelligence insulted steadily during this entire nfortunate episode. But, really, who are they kidding? Raise your hand if ou believe the vote in the PRI-dominated committee would have been the same f it had been the leading PRI candidate in jeopardy rather than the only viable PRD candidate.
Any hands? Didn't think so.
It's unclear if the impeachers expect us to believe this sanctimonious enuflecting to the “law” or if it's simply a strategem to frame the issue n a way that pushes the right buttons in a society fed up with lawlessness — on the street and in the halls of government. Ask a focus group if López Obrador should be allowed to run for president, you'll get a resounding yes. But ask the same group if he should be above the law, and you'll get the unanimous “no” you're looking for.
This old change-the-subject ploy can be a winner. The Bush administration, having run out of justifications for attacking and then occupying Iraq, settled on the mantra, “Saddam was a brutal dictator.” Since then, questioning the morality or even the advisability of a unilateral preemptive war on a sovereign nation means (in the U.S. at least) you're soft on brutal dictators. End of discussion.
Not Buying The Spin
So far, neither the Mexican people or their press are buying into the this-isn't-political interpretation of the López Obrador proceedings. But the rule-of-law frame, perhaps by virtue of endless repetition, has found some footholds.
One Mexico City daily recently polled sitting governors on how they stood on the desafuero (the stripping of López Obrador's legal immunity in order to try him on contempt charges, and thus all-but-certainly barring him from a presidential run). The comments of those supporting the desafuero ran under the headline “For Legality.” The rest ran under the head “Against.”
The “Against” presumably referred to their position on the desafuero, but the juxtaposition of the two heads certainly left open the interpretation that they were “against legality.”
An intentional ambiguity by a paper on less-than-friendly terms with the Mexico City mayor? We report. You decide.
But what it does show is that the PAN and the PRI have had some success in framing the desafuero process as an attempt to fortify the rule of law. And we'll no doubt be hearing a lot more along those lines as the vote goes to the full Chamber. Barring an unexpected flood of deputies breaking party ranks, that's where the desafuero will become official and the lawyers will go to work to see what happens next.
The problem with the rule-of-law frame, besides its transparent insincerity, is that respect for the law is not a beneficiary of this ordeal. It's a victim.
In the abstract, we think of lawbreaking as something set off against a clear white background of lawfulness. But in the real world, it's all a whirling gray blur. Just as truth is an area and not a point, law enforcement is an art with an aim — a just and safe society — not a paint-by-numbers rote exercise.
This is not to say that enforcement should be relative or that if “everybdoy does it,” it's okay. It does mean that applying the law requires constant decision-making.
We all agree on what those decisions should be at the extremes: A delinquent who assaults a passer-by should do serious time. A toddler who dribbles on the sidewalk should not be fined for littering. But in the middle range, effective law enforcement means making wise decisions about which kinds of arrests will serve to make the population safer and the rule of law stronger.
A candidacy-ending prosecution for a minor administrative infraction (and perhaps not even that) fails that test. It fails not because López Obrador is “above the law” but because it serves no purpose other than benefiting his political enemies. This is exactly the kind of misuse of “the law” that the country is trying to overcome, not prolong.
Intentionally or not, the message the impeachers are sending to the populace is not that the rule of law is supreme. It's that the rule of law is most important when it serves their political interests.
kellyg@prodigy.net.mx |
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