Tuesday, December 23, 2008 Seares: Who’s bullying whom? By Pachico A. Seares News Sense
“HE shall not bully me.”
— The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens
REGIONAL Trial Court Judge Gabriel Ingles, speaking for the judges, said they won’t be bullied by anybody amid an alleged Capitol threat to cut off their allowances.
In reply, Capitol said it’s not the policy of the governor to threaten or bully judges.
That should put the issue to rest, then just wait for one or the other to be proven wrong. But is there any bullying?
A bully is defined as a person who hurts, persecutes, or intimidates weaker people, one who is habitually cruel or overbearing, at workplace, school, or anywhere else when strength is lopsided.
Basing on that, it’s difficult to pin the tag of bully on Rory Jon or his boss the governor, at least on the issue of judges’ allowances.
Courts’ might
Judges are not exactly “weaker people.” The might of courts, with power that local government officials don’t have, makes judges anything but wimps.
Allowances don’t diminish judges’ authority. A judge can always refuse the perk, as some judges have done, and hold on to what he thinks is right.
Capitol won’t say it’s using the allowances to get what it wants. It’s not into blackmail or bribery. Yet, allowances are a tool in the hand. If judges see the hint of its use as bullying, they aren’t utterly helpless in coping with it.
There’s a price for facing up to a bully, real or just perceived. You get beaten up or you get scared to death by a delusion.
To the judges, it can be the actual slashing of an allowance or the imagined fear of its loss.
