Recent “citizen’s arrests” of customs officials for blocking unauthorized cross-border grain movement are an unwelcome and extremist escalation in the debate over wheat board marketing powers.
The power of citizen’s arrest is more commonly used in emergencies. Tackling a fleeing thief when no police are available would be one example.
But when it’s a complex matter of how to interpret laws and regulations, using the power of citizen’s arrest seems more like a ludicrous publicity stunt.
Such action, allegedly taken to uphold the law, can instead help erode the important democratic tradition of the rule of law.
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It took centuries for democrats to establish the principle that everyone – from king to peasant – was subject to the rule of written laws. Moreover, laws could not be created or changed by someone’s personal whim; legislative or court processes were needed.
This means that, in a democracy, respect for the rule of law includes respecting even laws that you consider unjust and unfair. Democratic processes, including everything from protest rallies to political lobbying to court action, are available to anyone wanting to overturn a law he or she considers unfair. That is the path that was followed, successfully, by pro-board forces who said the former government acted illegally in creating the short-lived continental barley market.
There is also, in extreme cases, the option of civil disobedience. This may involve breaking laws – for example, the old segregationist U.S. laws that restricted black people from certain public facilities. But even though such laws were broken, the rule of law was still respected in the sense that the law-breakers accepted peace officers’ authority to try to uphold the law by making arrests and laying charges.
In short, the civil-disobedience activists were willing to pay the price of breaking laws, to call attention to those laws and to lay the groundwork for higher-court appeals.
Thus, the idea of arresting customs officers for doing their defined duty cannot be justified on grounds of civil disobedience. Even if any of these arrests are somehow found to be acceptable on technical legal grounds, they are arrogant and contrary to the principle of democratic rule of law.
They also create the potential for confrontation that could sooner or later be sparked into violence. Already, some assault charges have been laid.
Before anything gets out of control, it would be helpful if those on all sides of this debate resolved to avoid inflammatory rhetoric and to discourage any more citizen arrests. Some plain farmer-to-farmer talk would go a long way toward ensuring we don’t see riot squads deployed at the border.
