Observer EDITORIAL: How much should Cabinet be told?

[Karl]

How much should Cabinet be told?

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...#ixzz1Et35Hw5j

It is obvious that every citizen in a country cannot know everything about national security, although citizens are entitled to know as much as possible about government policies and actions.

How much about government actions and policy a government chooses to divulge to the public is a matter of judgement.

The Dudus/Manatt Commission of Enquiry is currently agonising over the two Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) signed by Dr Peter Phillips without recourse to the Cabinet or the prime minister. Was the former security minister on solid ground?

At all levels, there is some guidance on what to make public and when, but as the level of authority increases up to the Cabinet there is a parallel increase in the ambit for the exercise of discretion and judgement. The irony is that as the level of responsibility and the sensitivity of information increase so does the scope for the subjective.

Avoiding the usual political myopia, we must ask three questions:

First, what and how much is the public entitled to know about government decisions and actions? One obvious criterion would be whether making the information public would be detrimental to national security or vital commercial negotiations.

It is our view that a balance has to be struck between disclosure and judicious withholding of information.

Second, when can, and should the public be made aware of certain information? Two criteria apply here: (a) the public should know as much as possible at the earliest opportunity and (b) some information changes status from sensitive to innocuous with the passage of time. The public should know the where, when, how and why of operations by the security forces but only at the end. This is different from the announcement of a policy on operations to eliminate criminal gangs or eradicate ganja production.

Third, who decides what and when the public should know? The most sensitive information is the purview of the judiciary, the security forces, the Cabinet, the prime minister and the governor-general. They are all bound to confidentiality, but being human they may be inadvertently indiscreet. They forget what is confidential and tell it to others whom they have sworn to secrecy.

If they deliberately breach confidentiality what are the repercussions of their actions and what are the appropriate sanctions?

Ideally, the prime minister should know everything about government policy and about policy actions and their implementation. We believe that if important decisions are made in the execution of Cabinet-approved policy, the prime minister, at the very least, should be informed.

Where the answers to these questions are unsatisfactory, the explanation advanced is invariably that the information withheld was because of national security. The persons responsible for deciding what constitutes national security have to do so with the utmost care because history shows that the most heinous abuses of human rights are committed in the name of national security.

For example, the invasion of Iraq was carried out in the interest of national security of the coalition countries. During the Norman Manley Government here, Rastafarians were deemed a threat to national security and during Shearer's tenure having certain autobiographies, like that of Malcolm X or Walter Rodney, was deemed subversive of national security.

It's often the thin edge of the wedge. And after all, we are running a country.


Read more: http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/edito...#ixzz1Et2i8N4U