Society Norm vs Law

When it comes to law and society norm, which one should take precedence? Law abiding citizen will definitely prioritise the law, and rightly so I think or else the order for the city will be disrupted. Everybody should at his/her best complying with the law. Having said this, people always argue about unreasonable legislative requirement or biased towards certain group of people or sometime it is not consistent with the other legislation. Under such circumstances, what should we observe? This especially related to the society norm. For example, environmental law not allowing open burning is not in flavour by some ethnic group as burning of material is used for prayer session. Similarly, municipal law does not allow obstruction on the five foot way but the rule has to be relaxed during certain hour for restaurant operators to place their tables and chairs on the open terrace. We tolerate with such practice as long as it is not physically harmful to us. Of course this perception is allowed as we have not accounted the public cost as our own lost.

General public are empathy with matters related to to the interest of general public. For example, we tend to agree with matter on education, welfare, medical affair in totality and compromise on things that non-comforming to the requirement of rules or law. For example, we might be crumbling for inconvenient but still feel ok with row of cars parking illegally along side the main road in front of the school. Similarly, although we knew but we do not mind to patronise a dirty eating outlet as long as the service, quality of food and price is reasonable.

I presume Malaysian is very accomodative and tolerate with any minor wrong doing as long as it is not causing major disruption to the society. We are of what we are today, I believe because we are not the one to pay directly for the wrong doing, we simply do not care much.

Having said this, under certain circumstances, it is not that we do not care and trying to break the law, but rather choose the best option available. I came acroos a case with a school authority for solving the traffic congestion and car parking problem. Over the last ten years, parents have been parking their vehicles along the main road in front of the school compound and thus causing major traffic problem during off school hour. This has caused big disatisfaction for the neighbouring residents and road users. In solving this, they secure a piece of reserve land nearby for constructing a car park. While waiting for the proper procedure of approval be completed, some donors came forward to offer to donate earth for leveling the site. The earth is dug and carried from the nearby existing construction site and has to do so according to the construction work schedule. The question is while accepting the earth for leveling will violate the law for non compliance, rejecting the offer means the school with limited budget will have to purchase the earth at later date. The cost can go up to few hundred thousand. Under such circumstances, what should the school authority do?

I think it is a case of dilemma between law abiding and society norm. I do not think it is easy to solve unless efficiency in governance, change in perception about society norms and value are all in place. I do not foresee this is forthcoming in very near future.