When Development Minister Christos Folias says that gas station owners are not “above the law,” he should make clear what law he is specifically referring to.

It is a well known fact that the entire fuel trade is steeped in illegality. For the past five years, gasoline vendors have not being obeying the law requiring the use of cash registers, while the Development Ministry has turned a blind eye.

When a particular commercial sector is allowed to disobey a law with impunity, we can be sure that they will refuse to obey any law they don’t approve of.

In this country, refusing to obey laws is no coincidence but is due to the tolerance the government shows toward illegal behavior. Laws are not passed to be enforced piecemeal or on a case-by-case basis.

Either they are valid as a whole or – as the gasoline station owners have shown – not at all.

Those who break the laws are, in practice, making a mockery of statements such as those pronounced by Folias.