Political rulers immediately and intrinsically upon assuming office, have an ethical conundrum thrust on their shoulders. They have to administer the country economically well, but they have to do so in a way that they assure the virtue of distributive justice, which is directed from the social whole to the individual. Nobody, no subject, can force a leader to be just. However political leaders who choose to administer justice wrongly are rightly termed unjust rulers and since distributive justice is not only a responsibility of the ruler but also of the ruled subject, it expunges the ruled not to suffer the injustices of the ruler and to change him or her at the first opportunity. Subjects' real power and obligation is not to consent to unjust rule, otherwise they would be consenting and participating in this injustice! People who are ruled should show their willingness for just rule by showing their inner disposition and a readiness to participate in any rule by giving their consent to a just administering of the common good. The obverse is also true as unjust rule should be rejected by the ruled!
Aquinas says that "in distributive justice something is given to a private individual insofar as what belongs to the whole is due to the part". In effect this is a distribution of an individual's due share in the common good, a share that is due to him. The concept of the common good is a wide one. Some define it as the social product, the sum of the total product of community life which needs be distributed and shared by all members of the community. However, the concept of the common good extends well beyond any range of material goods produced by the community! Any tenet of common good must also rest on a real knowledge of the objective truth. Nations can only thrive in proportion to the depth of a reality that is accessible to them. The common good also represents the essence of good things for which a community exists, which is to give a man a share in these good things which share is due to him. To allow any man to take part in the realization of this good in accordance with one's dignity, capacity and ability. All good things bestowed to man by God in creation, including man's capacities and abilities, belong to the good of the community, a good which needs be protected by the ruler.
When the needs of distributive justice and the common good are not met by the ruler, there is a slippery slope into totalitarian government as one class or party strives to annihilate the other and to destroy order in the nation. The common good is not a concept of the utility of the state or of the majority of individuals in a particular community. When the utility of some men due to their political colour or the social class of some men, take over the justice or merit of a particular cause, then that is the end of distributive justice and the common good! One should give promotions for example, by considering the merit of due cause, not the person! This also happens when the political ruler tries to be able by himself to subjectively provide a comprehensive definition of the common good, such as for the need of a particular class or party faithful. One of the fastest slides into totalitarianism is when a ruler or his cohorts expressly cast suspicion on impartiality and objectivity especially on the people running other institutions of the State.
Unfortunately, we are now observing all the above negative vices taking hold in our country only three years after the election of the current Labour government. Public monies and land are distributed haphazardly as pay-back favours to particular people while ignoring due cause, fair distributive justice, the environment, and ultimately truth and the common good. I need not go into the various multiple well known cases where this has openly taken place, but I must also point out the harsh criticism by government ministers or MPs of persons issuing reports on behalf of State institutions such as the Ombudsman, The Commission against Corruption and the National Audit Office just to mention a few. To say nothing of the way that other State institutions like Mepa are being rendered toothless by some of its funny decisions seemingly taken by cronies of the party in government, by the subjective changing of codes of ethics to suit individual ministerial situations. By the way other institutions in civil society such as local councils and investigative reporting newspapers are treated. By the silence of the person who is empowered to see that these state institutions work properly, that is the Prime Minister himself! A Prime Minister, whose level of ethical discourse and action is one of the poorest in recent years. In an unpopular book today, which few bother to read, there is a reference in both the Old and New Testaments about the evil of this attitude. In Deuteronomy, God tells Moses "to judge that which is just, whether he be of your country or a stranger. You shall hear the little as well as the great: neither shall you respect any man's person (but the cause)". In a letter of that great doctor of the gentiles to the Ephesians, Paul states: "The Lord (of all classes of peoples) is in heaven: and there is no respect of persons with him (but of cause)". A clear praxis laid down by Divine Law ethical theory and also supported by Natural Law ethical theory or reason!
We see today a charade of mass proportions, as due cause gives way to due person, and as distributive justice and the common good fly out of the window! Should we, the led, suffer to remain handled in this way? We need new political leaders who are not only more wise and just, but also more prudent! It may well be, as the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament has stated, the beginning of the end. Or as Churchill would have said, it may be just the end of the beginning (of the end). Either way the end seems to be nigh!
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