Lie detector: To use or not to use?
Lie detectors alone will not weed out corruption and we still need to look to the rule of law and power-checking system to effectively stamp out corruption.
By Tan Poh Kheng
In front of a lie detector, anyone trying to speak against his or her heart will experience accelerated heartbeat, higher blood pressure, more rushy breathing and cold sweat. All these can confirm that a person is telling a lie and is acting against his or her conscience.
It is harder and harder to read a person’s mind nowadays as inter-personal relationships get increasingly frail. Little wonder lie detectors have been employed in match-making interviews in China.
Perhaps some time in the future we may also need to put on a tiny wearable lie detector to assess the integrity of people around us and to tell whether our politicians are talking nonsense.
As a matter of fact, most people in this world have something they bury deep inside them and which they are unwilling to tell their closest friends or even spouse.
In a hugely popular French TV programme several years ago, participants of the reality show were required to answer 20 questions from the host in front of a lie detector before they could take home the 100,000-franc cash reward.
Even then, many people felt ashamed to answer questions such as “Did you misappropriate public funds before?”, “Have you been dishonest to your spouse?”, “Did you bribe anyone?” and “Did you receive any bribe?”. The participants not only failed to win the cash reward, they also had their most secretive moral defects unreservedly exposed on national TV, watched by millions.
It is undeniable that public service corruption is getting increasingly serious in this country, with many government officials already detained for interrogation.
As such, the MACC has proposed the use of polygraph tests to analyze potential corruption when recruiting new civil servants. The thing is, newly-employed civil servants have no access to power yet, and how are we going to make sure they will not become corrupt in future?
As for those who already have some powers and influence, especially civil servants of Grade 41 and above who have the right to decide on government contracts, if these people were put to test in the French TV show, I’m afraid none would get any reward even if RM1 million is up for grabs.
Our civil servants either cannot muster enough courage to join the show, or the truth revealed by the lie detector would shock the whole nation.
According to a New Straits Times report, several senior government officials admitted in front of the lie detector that they had indeed misappropriated public funds. But, this could only be the tip of the iceberg.
Even if lie detectors can help our public institutions identify the thieves and may have some effect in discouraging potentially dishonest employees, their use could have a negative impact on the self esteem of the civil servants, which must be taken into serious consideration and respected.
Public service corruption is poised to do great damage to the country and society. That said, lie detectors alone will not weed out corruption and in the end we may still need to look to the rule of law and power-checking system to effectively stamp out corruption.
Tan Poh Kheng writes for Sin Chew Daily.
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