Response : What Nonsense
 

Durban High Court Judge Ron McLaren seeks to justify limiting our age-old, legal right to remain silent or not (July 22), because of the fight against corruption.

Many may agree corruption is destructive and hateful. It follows when bad law assigns too much discretion to public officials or poor management lets them misbehave (or both).

Where officials are bribable, private individuals naturally seek advantage by offering a bribe. This may more swiftly finalise contract allocation to the best briber, who may be the most cost-effective contractor with profit left after paying the bribe. Under bad government this may serve the taxpayer well.

Reporter Tim Cohen perspicaciously observes that "in corruption, there is often no immediately discernible victim". It's like winning the lottery after buying extra tickets. The losers aren't any worse off. They simply did not get the contract, like not winning the lottery.

At this point, someone always interjects that taxpayers lose. But they always lose, starting from when their taxes are forcibly extracted. That's just the wasteful nature of government. The question is whether they would lose more or less if corruption were to be magically eliminated.

In developing states corruption probably helps to circumvent bad law and bad public management.

Dare I suggest it has something in common with smuggling, drug-running, counterfeiting and prostitution. Such unsavoury "victimless crimes" profitably satisfy willing clients.

Society would be poorer if they were stamped out, which would divert scarce policing resources from tackling real crimes where people are harmed or their property is damaged.

So let's hope police commissioner Jackie Selebi assigns them low priority, along with the silly antismoking law and the smuggling of plastic bags.

With acknowledgements to Jim Harris and the Business Day.