Growth of the democratic deficit

José Herrera was quite right in stating (May 9) that the government has stealthily, over a number of years, been undermining an important state institution which is the Magisterial Inquiry.

And it has been doing this for reasons of expediency whenever a government department is at risk of being exposed of gross inefficiency or negligence which has led to the death of one or more persons. The way it does this is by setting up a parallel departmental inquiry led by experts of its own choosing.

This is a serious charge, by which the executive arm of the government interferes and suborns the judicial system and thus strikes at the very foundation of our democracy.

What I find surprising is that Parliament, which is packed with lawyers, seems to be comfortable with this state of affairs.

As far back as November 10, 1990, a Minister for Health and Social Services at the time, in an official parliamentary reply, stated that in the case of the pending Magisterial Inquiry into the death of a Korean seaman at St Luke's Hospital "the Department of Health appointed its own experts... to give him advice on the case. The department passed the report of these experts to the Attorney General".

The minister in question, today an important member of our House of Representatives, went on to declare: "While I make precise that the Department of Health did not set up a Departmental Inquiry, as the Magisterial Inquiry is still in being, I am putting on the Table of the House the report of the experts appointed by the department at some other sitting when Papers are tabled". The report was laid on the Table of the House on November 11, 1992.

It is pertinent to point out in the light of subsequent events, that no voice was ever raised that the minister was misleading the House when he stated that "the Department of Health did not set up a Departmental Inquiry, as the Magisterial Inquiry is still in being... "

And further, that in spite of the report of the departmental inquiry, the Attorney General agreed to charges being pressed in a court of law, and that in the ensuing court case the said famous departmental report never saw the light of day although it had been bandied about in certain sections of the press and laid on the Table of the House.

Like the size of our other deficit, our democratic deficit seems to be growing, not shrinking.