THE reluctance of police to take action against those who flaunt their contempt for the law by openly drinking at the krantz braai-area and on the beaches, and their failure to respond to complaints about the unacceptable noise created by the recent music festival, is in sharp contrast to the decisive and prompt manner in which they, several years ago, responded to complaints of noise emanating from patrons of a pub on West Beach.
In the latter instance the police, after having first cunningly set up a roadblock in order to apprehend those patrons who had imbibed well, but not wisely, presented themselves in full force and instructed the patrons to leave the area. Even a patron who protested that he was in no fit state to drive, was threatened with arrest if he did not immediately comply. When he did so, he was, of course, promptly arrested at the roadblock.
So the question, which springs unbidden to mind, is what was it about those revellers that ensured that the police carried out their duties without fear or favour, while other revellers are permitted to flout the law, convention and morality without let or hindrance?
There is a small voice in the back of my head whispering a reason, but I shall ignore it, as I cannot believe that those who have undertaken to serve and protect can be actuated by so base a motive. However, the voice, small though it be, is very persistent and unless the police can show by their actions that they will enforce the law whenever and by whomever it is contravened, I shall have to accept that they act, not in the interests of the common good, but at the behest of their political masters.
If, as is universally acknowledged, all are equal before the law, then it must follow that all who break the law should receive equal treatment.
DERRICK FELLOWS
