This country is governed under a system of rules and laws.
We have long since turned our face against arbitrary rule, and we respect and determine the rights of our people according to well-known principles.
The right to property is one of those rights to which we accord the highest priority. We even protect it in our Constitution.
We treat property as important because we recognize its seminal role in the process of constructive nation building, and we therefore pass laws against theft because we understand the meaning and import of the eighth and tenth commandments.
So that the order that one should not covet his neighbour’s house, nor covet his neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is his neighbour’s, becomes a central plank in the foundation of our ordered and democratic society, its quaint language notwithstanding!
We even bind the State by the general application of the rules relating to property and order them to pay adequate compensation when the greater demands of the public welfare permit the compulsory acquisition of an individual’s property.
Academics and the lawyers tell us that all this is part of the rule of law, but by whatever name it is called, the sanctity of a person’s property is rooted in plain old commonsense, for without it, the law of the jungle would not be far off, and might would soon be right.
The young mother who recently broke into the property owned by the National Housing Corporation and took up occupation may have been at the desperate end of her tether.
Being seven months pregnant, without a place to live and with two young children, aged four and three, cannot have been an easy situation; but however one may empathize with her plight, her actions could have driven a stake through the heart of our concept of a property owning democracy.
The firm action of the authorities in serving an eviction notice on the young woman was a proper and timely response to this infraction. The minister was right. Recent history has shown that simple actions can often have far-reaching consequences, and as we recall the action of one young Tunisian earlier this year led to the Arab Spring.
We recognize that the authorities were able to temper justice with mercy and that some solution has been found; but we must condemn in the strongest terms any such attempt (albeit unintended) to violate the sanctity of property; for to put it bluntly that is what this incident was.
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