Sidek Hasan said in a Malaysiakini interview (Sept 10) that civil servants "have to be loyal" to the government of the day because "the government serves the people... the government has to be answerable to the people".

Sidek Hasan is the chief secretary to the government. His statement reflects (accurately it would appear) the professional philosophy of civil servants - be loyal to the government of the day! This philosophy sends a chill up the spine.

This is not to say that the civil servants should not be loyal to the government. Civil servants are executors and implementers of public policies propounded by the government.

So while it is good for them to be loyal to the government and "follow what the government tells us to do", such loyalty should be limited to the extent of the law.

Civil servants are servants of the public, not of the government.

This limit is analogous to the ulamas' teaching for a woman to be loyal to her husband. She must for example show total devotion to him, and abide by his every wish and command - until he demands her to do things contrary to the teachings of Islam, like perhaps forcing her to drink liquor.

Civil servants' duty to be loyal to the government likewise should stop when policy directives break existing laws.

These analogies provide the arguments why the civil service must not be loyal to the government; not blindly anyway. They indicate the existence of a higher authority, namely the supremacy and rule of law in a democracy.

In a democracy, civil law is legislated (a) to protect man against other men, and (b) man against the government. This means that the law rules supreme over man and government; and that under the law man and government are equals.

The civil servants are there to execute and apply the law fairly and equitably between man against another man and man against the government.

All these go to show that the executive branch to which the civil service belongs must be impartial. It has to be loyal to the law of the land i.e. the constitution. If the civil service, somehow, is blindly loyal to the government, then its impartiality can be compromised.

Indeed a test case has presented itself recently, involving the Perak state constitutional debacle.

Baradan Kuppusamy of the Star newspaper columnist has said something about this same issue. He may not directly be a civil servant, but has loyalty to the MCA-owned Star, and by extension, the government.

He referred to the Perak case as "all's fair in love and in war (the Star 8, Sept 2009)" under the heading ‘Stop pretending to be in power'.

No, it is not all fair in love and in war. It is definitely also not at all fair in a government governing and managing a country. There is the law of the land to which every man and the government must adhere.

It is thus not fair for the civil servants to show blind loyalty to the government, or for the government leaders to make full use of the state institutions to further their political interests.

The Perak debacle has demonstrated the bad tidings that can happen when the government is elevated in status from that of man in the eyes of the law, in this case by way of the civil service practicing blind loyalty to it.

The country will then not be ruled by law, but by partisan government leaders with the active support of civil servants. History tells us this situation and can easily lead the country to lawlessness and anarchy.

We seem to be courting anarchy. If we as a country are not there yet, we might well soon be.