On the threshold of law college

14.06.06 On the eve of Ambika's taking up a law course, I would tell her that law is the norm we ought to comply with if our society is to sustain itself as an ordered one. Laws are breached and it is in the interest of Society that the breach is plugged to save the society from disintergrating. Therefore the lawyer, who, as the arrangement has it, steps in only when there is a breach, is always in the two parts of defence and prosecution and has to apply the mechanics of law to ensure that the 'transgressor' has not actually made a wilful transgression but was innocent of the circumstances if he is defending and if prosecuting, to ensure that the 'transgressor' would not get a second temptation to breach and the law itself, in the form of the judge, ensures that it has weighed the assertions of the defense and the prosecution in the scale of justice and passed a fair verdict as to whether the incident before it was a transgression of the law or was innocent of any transgressions. Therefore we can say that law is applied by three forces acting upon it - the defence, the prosecution and the judge. All three, fulfiling their duty in all seriousness and integrity alone can ensure that society sustains itself as a law-abiding one.