Gajalakshmi Paramasivam

17 October  2020

 

 

A compulsory examination is to be conducted in private

Every sovereign unit is entitled to its privacy. The test as to who has authority to inquire into our conduct within that private space is the test of sovereignty. To have subjective powers one needs to be inside the circle of sovereignty. Voting rights are recognized as Universal Franchise due to that Sovereign power which is absolute within that circle and not when one is outside.

A government elected by the people is limited to that absolute power only to the extent it does not dilute that power by external factors – however noble they may seem. Today’s Sydney Morning Herald article ‘Dangerous liaisons: Doubts about Premier's judgment may be hard to erase’ strongly indicates such infiltration by some parts of the Media which is using NSW ICAC inquiry to judge rather than to report.

Sections 13 (a) and (b) of the Independent Commission Against Corruption Act 1988 No 35

state as follows:

[(b)  to investigate any matter referred to the Commission by both Houses of Parliament,

(c)  to communicate to appropriate authorities the results of its investigations]

 

ICAC therefore has no mandate to Judge. Likewise the Media. Media has  the authority report what happened. As per the above article :

[While allegations of misusing his position as an MP for financial gain lay firmly at the door of Maguire, it is the Premier’s judgment that is now under heavy questioning.]

The question is whether the Premier had the authority to judge someone within the space of a relationship outside parliament. Every relationship driven by truth is sovereign. No one has the right to use external measures in terms of the exchanges within that relationship.

Section 17 (2) of the ICAC Act provides as follows:

[17(2)  The Commission shall exercise its functions with as little formality and technicality as is possible, and, in particular, the Commission shall accept written submissions as far as is possible and compulsory examinations and public inquiries shall be conducted with as little emphasis on an adversarial approach as is possible.]

Where the adversarial approach is used, the other side has the right to Equal Opposition and therefore the responsibility to be transparent. Not so in inquiries where the inquirer has higher power than the one being inquired into. Section 30(5) of the Act protects our rights to privacy as follows:

[30 (5)  A compulsory examination is to be conducted in private.]

The ICAC, to my mind, erred by making the examination of the Premier’s mind public. This therefore negates the legality of its findings. More importantly, it has led to the Media taking the adversarial approach to publish judgments outside their mandate. We the people make our own judgments as per our true needs. THAT is the way to maintain the Universality of our democratic rights.

We expect our parliament to be a sovereign institution. It is our governance power that renders this sovereignty. The sovereignty of the People is the sovereignty of the government. This may happen at lower levels of intellectual logic often built into written laws. Damage to this governance power through such ‘external’ laws is damage to the Universal Franchise through which we empower our government not only through votes but continuously through our belief – including belief in practices that may not fit an external law. This is the real risk where intellectuals fail to stay within the circle of sovereignty of the People in whose interest a government is required to operate.

To the extent we have confidential relationships we cure each other through that confidential power. To punish one for such confidentiality is confirmation of selfishness and greed on the part of the person/group so expressing their power. This is most immoral.

As per the above article:

[Another senior colleague says Berejiklian is "completely loved by voters".

"For the first time in my career we have the public and politicians on one side and the media on the other," the colleague says.

"But what we don’t know is how long it stays like that and I admit it would only take one unhelpful detail to come out and everything would change."

The MP insists that about 80 per cent of correspondence to their electorate office this week discussing the scandal "is completely supportive of her".]

 

To the extent Ms Berejiklian upheld her right to privacy through which she, like a mother,  actually cured someone through her own goodness, the lady is the mother that the State needs. As I often say to my followers in terms of position – a wife is a combination of mother and daughter; and a husband is a combination of father and son. A mother protecting her child through a goodness is respectable. If the lady had erred as per the law – that needs to be first established to the satisfaction of the ICAC and/or the Media independent of each other – and not in collusion with each other. Both groups are cowards.