Anna Hazare, the 74 year old retired army driver who forced Parliament to accept his terms for an Anti-Corruption Bill, claims inspiration from Hongkong's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC).
Hongkong's ICAC, established in 1974, is widely credited with cleaning up an entrenched nexus of mobsters-business-police which plagued the territory for decades.
There is a major difference between HK's ICAC charter and Hazare's Jan Lokpal (Citizens' Ombudsman) proposals: the principle of separation of powers between investigation and prosecution.
While the ICAC has powers of independent investigation, the power to prosecute is vested with the Secretary for Justice. In Hazare's proposal, the Jan Lokpal vests itself with the roles of investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner all-in-one.
That has chilled MPs of all parties. This could lead to mass accusations and witch-hunts on the scale of the Spanish Inquisition, the 'class-struggles' of the Cultural Revolution and the crazed kangaroo courts of revolutionaries through history.
There is little enthusiasm among parliamentarians for such an over-concentration of power in an agency outside the oversight of elected lawmakers.
ENDS
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