The Supreme Court’s decision this week — at the end of the day — ends the battle of wits between those for “capacity-building” and those for “capability-building” with the latter walking tall. Footnote is: Project Democracy should not be made the punching bag for repeats of errors, omissions and oversights generally handled on desks. The need for even basic education to “rule” was set aside, and therefore why blame the people’s representatives — surely they can’t be expected to vet documents, etc. That’s where the top court’s gavel fell on Thursday — on the process, on “merit” ” –quantum” of the verdict notwithstanding. Thumbs up. Still, the matter remains that in future these should be processed professionally without the need for the Court to intervene and make any political setup become the punching bag. The newly-elected political set-up faced headwinds too just as others did in such “typo” and similar situations; the civil bureaucracy ducked; and the media of which the electronic and the social subsets are, had a field’s day — they are facing growing pains themselves — our nascent electronic media and the social media deserve the role of being messengers, sans “let the chips fall where they may”.
In the meanwhile, the ecosystem between the ruled and the rulers (civil bureaucracy) needs capability-building. That would augment future “shambolic” deliveries. The top Court taking a suo moto is an age-old message: Water finds its level. And judiciously rectifying wrong documentation procedures, repeats, clerical errors, etc. without challenging the merit of the decision, was warranted and therefore aptly handled. Once the dust settles down in a highly polarized atmosphere, the decision will stand out more as a teacher asking the system to make students learn critical writing at school. The way defendants handled the stuff shows stoicism is at work. Going forward, an overall paperwork reduction Act could help, and merit as the bottom line will be an added plus. That’s a Project Democracy attribute needing bipartisan (multiparty) resolve.
