EDITORIAL: Amend Article 47
It’s time to embark on a fourth constitutional amendment to address Article 47 (c), which effectively prevents civil servants from standing for elective political positions unless they resign.
There is nothing criminal about vying for political office, and those wanting a shot at it should not be punished by depriving them of a right to contest unless they resign.
The chaos engulfing PDM was midwifed by both the draconian nature of Article 47 and the party’s own hard-headedness to disobey what is clearly an unfair but lawful legal provision.
Laws are there to be adhered to, and not to be broken, as is often the pastime joke. And if lawmakers cannot abide by the very laws they make, how would they inspire the greater masses to be obedient citizens of the land?
The media and research institutions must now dig deeper and determine who the chief violators of Article 47 were over the years. We must uncover the beneficiaries of this illegality and how much they have stolen from the people of this country through ill-gotten salaries and other perks acquired by skipping this route.
Be that as it may, the law must be altered. If a teacher from a private school can contest for political office without having to resign from her job, but her counterpart from a public school must quit their job, it simply means there’s no fairness.
There is nothing criminal about vying for political office, and those wanting a shot at it should not be punished by depriving them of a right to contest unless they resign.
The chaos engulfing PDM was midwifed by both the draconian nature of Article 47 and the party’s own hard-headedness to disobey what is clearly an unfair but lawful legal provision.
Laws are there to be adhered to, and not to be broken, as is often the pastime joke. And if lawmakers cannot abide by the very laws they make, how would they inspire the greater masses to be obedient citizens of the land?
The media and research institutions must now dig deeper and determine who the chief violators of Article 47 were over the years. We must uncover the beneficiaries of this illegality and how much they have stolen from the people of this country through ill-gotten salaries and other perks acquired by skipping this route.
Be that as it may, the law must be altered. If a teacher from a private school can contest for political office without having to resign from her job, but her counterpart from a public school must quit their job, it simply means there’s no fairness.
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