You are always wrong!!!!

Over the last few years, we have developed a mind set of challenging whatever the people in power do. We believe that the government will do nothing good for us. I can accept this from ordinary people. But its hard to accept this attitude of  politicians and MPs. Its a norm for our opposition to blindly reject whatever the government proposes, be it a policy or a piece of legislation, regardless of the rationale, content and quality. I agree that the government has been making a lot of mistakes, they are doing a lot of things for their own advantage. But it does not mean that they do nothing good for the country. It also does not justify the opposition's action - viewing every policy/legislation through the same lens.

Recently, the government has submitted a bill to the parliament about the establishment of a mercantile court. One of the very controversial provisions in the bill is about the composition of the panel of judges to be appointed to the court. According to the Bill, two foreign judges can be appointed to the court. I see this provision as very practical and beneficial. The hard truth is our judiciary lacks qualified and competent judges. Judges to be appointed to the mercantile court require to have specific qualifications and expertise - specialised in this area. We have only a handful of people with such qualifications and expertise. They would rather prefer to remain as corporate lawyers rather than to become judges as they earn more being lawyers.

It is not a rare practice in other countries to appoint foreign judges to the courts. Small countries such as Fiji appoint foreign judges from various countries (e.g. from Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka etc). The advantage of appointing foreign judges are manifold. Surely, it would  facilitate knowledge transfer and build the capacity of our local judges.

We need to see pros and cons of policies/legislations before rejecting them. I wonder when would we see this attitude from our opposition.