Impunity and immunity

While going through the internet edition of Daily 'The News', Lahore, July 18, 2012, title of top story of today’s newspaper caught my attention. The title of the story was ‘Somali kingpins enjoy impunity’. The opening sentence of the news story was “Somalia’s president has shielded a top pirate leader from arrest by issuing him a diplomatic passport, according to a United Nations investigation which criticises the “climate of impunity” enjoyed by pirate kingpins in Somalia and abroad”. (For details, please go through http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-59337-Somali-pirate-kingpins-enjoy-%22impunity%22-). The story spells out that the leaders and the high ups of the Somali government are being protected by its President.

Another story of a similar nature is that of the President of Pakistan (Mr. Asif Ali Zardari) whereby he has, according to several reports in the local and international media, shielded him under the umbrella of immunity for himself to provide him protection against the money that is lying in the Swiss bank in their accounts. This means that as long as he is the president of Pakistan whatever wrong he did in the past and whatever wrong he is doing now, no court can challenge him.

English words Impunity and immunity have almost identical meanings.

Impunity, according to the free online dictionary, means
a. exemption or immunity from punishment or recrimination.
b. exemption or immunity from unpleasant consequences.

Immunity, on the other hand, provides protection against law, i.e.,
a. Exemption from normal legal duties, penalties, or liabilities, granted to a special group of people: legislative immunity.
b. Exemption from legal prosecution, often granted a witness in exchange for self-incriminating testimony.

Both the words are worth remembering from the stand point of vocabulary building for CSS exam, for pair of words and for their significance in the world politics as to how such leaders at the helm of affairs in the international politics are misusing their powers to fulfill their illicit designs. These words are also worth remembering in their relation to international politics (current affairs) as well as for Pakistan affairs. They are Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Idiomatically, the names have since become synonymous in western popular culture slang for any two people who look and act in identical ways, generally in a derogatory context”, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The Urdu meaning of this phrase is “Aik hee thalee kay chattay battay”.