The crooks are at it all over the world. The latest dispatch on government abuses of land owners comes from Myanmar (Myanmar’s Courts Subvert Rule of Law, Activists Say, December 4, 2011, at p. 18, news section — click here for the N.Y. Times article) where the government has been seizing land ostensibly for “government buildings,” that were never built, with the taken land later turned over to “companies with ties to the military” (which runs that country). The problem is growing.
But resistance on the part of the population is also growing, most recently with a protest march of some 300 people, which is a big deal in a totalitarian country run by a military junta, where citizens who speak out get arrested and charged with phony “crimes” (e.g., owning a fax machine without a government permit).
The leader of the protest movement, a lawyer named U Pho Phyu (who has been jailed and disbarred for his trouble), is quoted as charging that local land laws are being rewritten for the benefit of “favored allies of the government, including former military officers and their businress associates.”
We dig that part because, as it happens, California environmental laws have just been rewritten to favor the big boys — developers who propose to build $100-million-plus projects — who have just been granted a special, speedy judicial review process of their compliance with environmental laws, while others who propose smaller projects, may have to slog through a bureaucratic maze for years (click here ). Which is not to say that California is like Myanmar, but it illustrates a verity that just laws must be even-handedly applied if they are to command respects. And that goes for the courts too.