When any country or society undergoes severe exceptional and critical circumstances that hinder the governing authorities from fulfilling their duties and obligations towards ensuring a decent and dignified life for all citizens, certain principles, guidelines, and commitments must guide the management of such critical crises, whose objectives are to ensure the achievement of justice, solidarity, proportionality, responsibility, participation, and accountability among all segments and sectors of society across the country, from the highest-ranking official to the lowest, in order to equitably distribute the burdens of these circumstances according to clear standards. It is imperative for authorities in such situations to establish and develop crisis management mechanisms, implement measures to minimize the duration and impact of such crises, provide necessary relief and alternatives to the affected people, address all their effects, and implement measures for recovery.
Moreover, the country's authorities, institutions, and leadership must also commit to strict austerity programs, plans, and measures that are publicly announced, halting the majority of the usual spending typically seen in normal circumstances. They should limit spending to the essential minimum within the framework of the public interest while ensuring the highest levels of transparency, good governance, sound administration, integrity, and accountability in all expenditures during these urgent and crucial situations. This includes halting activities, events, and festivals, as well as curtailing advertising expenses in all forms. It also involves activating mechanisms to combat corruption, preventing illegitimate enrichment, regulating discretionary practices, and opening avenues for people to exercise roles in oversight, auditing, reporting, and accountability. Authorities should halt levies on the majority of sectors, encourage private sector social responsibility activities, guarantee freedom of opinion and expression, press freedom, and the freedom of work for civil society institutions, and strengthen judicial authority and the rule of law. Without the proactive initiative and measures from authorities to open a genuine and effective pathway through adhering to the principles and conditions ensuring justice, solidarity, proportionality, responsibility, participation, and accountability, there is no value in any excuses they may present to justify their failure to fulfill their legal, ethical, and humanitarian duties. These duties and obligations are crucial for ensuring a dignified and decent life for all segments of society, regardless of how convincingly their supporters portray the credibility and legitimacy of those excuses or how well they try to depict public understanding, satisfaction, and endorsement of them. No matter how elaborate their attempts to shift responsibilities or deflect accountability away from fulfilling their duties towards the people, no matter how much the leaders of those authorities rely on people's submission and passive acceptance of their policies, procedures, and outcomes, leaders must realize the inevitability of their downfall if they do not fulfill their obligations toward the people during crises.
“The antiquated, authoritarian, absolute form of power that disregards obligations and duties towards its citizens, devoid of accountability and oversight regarding the consequences of the conditions endured by people under its authority, has become a thing of the past.”
During exceptional crises in societies and countries, if aspects of corruption, illicit enrichment, squandering of public funds and resources, and the organization of promotional campaigns, festivals, and large celebrations persist, alongside manifestations of extravagance, excess, and institutional chaos such as lack of transparency, auditing, and accountability, along with the thriving war economy, the establishment of exclusive channels for expenditure and privileges, and escalating campaigns of repression, intimidation, defamation, and terrorization against dissenters, coupled with praise and glorification campaigns, those authorities have chosen to become purely corrupt and oppressive powers. There is no connection between them and the citizens except through fear; they fear their citizens, and the citizens fear them. This renders the authority devoid of legitimacy, legality, morality, and competence, and devoid of any future possibility of voluntary public acceptance of its rule. It becomes increasingly evident to most citizens that their downfall is imminent, regardless of the duration of their rule, no matter how powerful the tools of coercion, silence, and submission to them are, or the strength of the apparatus of intimidation, terrorization, and the crowds of flatterers and propagandists dedicated to defending the authorities' domains.
The authority in our world today, ranging from the highest to the lowest positions within it, operates on a contractual employment basis with defined duties and obligations set by legislation, laws, and regulations. It assigns roles and responsibilities, specifies permissions and prohibitions, and manages revenue and expenses with precision. All aspects of public resources, including leadership, agencies, institutions, activities, and operations, are subject to mechanisms of oversight, audit, accountability, and governance within the framework of the social contract and the rule of law. This serves as the basis for the legitimacy and legality of the existence of these authorities and their actions, as the antiquated, authoritarian, absolute form of power that disregards obligations and duties towards its citizens, devoid of accountability and oversight regarding the consequences of the conditions endured by people under its authority, has become a thing of the past.
On the other hand, the authorities' fulfillment of their full duties and responsibilities to secure a decent life for all their citizens without discrimination is not merely an ethical imperative dictated by moral and civilized human values such as justice, equality, equal citizenship, human rights, and coexistence alone. Rather, it is also a pragmatic, utilitarian, and beneficial necessity for the existence of those authorities, their legitimacy, justifications for their continuity, as well as the voluntary acceptance and choice of people towards them, the stability of societies and states, their peace, prosperity, and development. This necessity is evident in terms of putting an end to cycles of political conflict and destructive internal and external wars, maintaining internal social peace, ensuring the strength of societies, nations, and peoples, and guaranteeing the smooth management of legitimate interests among individuals, entities, groups, and countries.
One of the defining expressions within modern state systems, frequently echoed by officials in contemporary nations on various occasions, revolves around the responsible allocation and management of 'taxpayers' funds' with the utmost integrity and precision, prohibiting their wastage and misuse. Hence, the commitment is deemed crucial for every public servant entrusted with overseeing and managing these public resources, much like citizens' obligations to pay general taxes to legally authorized entities. This mutual commitment ensures their inherent right to oversee the authorities managing these resources, in accordance with the provisions outlined in laws, regulations, plans, and budgets, within a broader framework of guarantees based on the social contract, laws, and the rule of law system, which guarantees the political, social, economic, and cultural rights of all individuals. These guarantees are further reinforced by state institutions' commitment to protecting citizens' lives, dignity, freedom, security, and basic rights.
Consequently, in a state governed by citizenship and the rule of law, by rights, goodness, and justice, all matters related to public authority and public finances, including institutions, structures, revenues, expenditures, operations, decisions, procedures, and policies, along with the duties and responsibilities of national authorities to establish and enhance mechanisms for oversight, audit, and accountability—previously, concurrently, and subsequently—for all their activities, levels of governance, good administration practices, standards ensuring the separation of powers, and the legality, legitimacy, and justification of their existence and actions in all circumstances, are matters concerning the general public as stakeholders and are a source of legitimacy and justification for those authorities. Therefore, the public’s precise understanding of all details related to these matters and their activities is at the core of their rights, and the commitment to ensuring and guaranteeing those rights is at the core of any authority's duties in all circumstances, without exception. All of these become even more urgent, obligatory, and imperative during crises, exceptional circumstances, and critical conditions.
Accordingly, when an authority deliberately evades these requirements, obligations, and commitments, it is clear evidence that it has completely sunk into the mire and dens of corruption, its traps, tricks, labyrinths, loopholes, and intricate networks, and that the corruption, with all its taints, has overshadowed its entire entity, affairs, policies, and orientations. Furthermore, it is evidence that those who benefit from corruption have firmly grasped the helm of its leadership, commandeered its decisions, and utilized its resources, institutions, and mechanisms to serve corruption and the interests of corrupt individuals. They have taken every conceivable measure to ensure the impossibility of any reforming and rehabilitating its structures and functions, or any possibility of reclaiming its ability to fulfill any of its responsibilities to ensure a decent life for all people, and to manage their affairs and interests competently and with integrity. This authority has deviated from its fundamental purpose, having exhausted its maximum capacity in serving centers of influence, dominance, and corruption, thereby meeting the prerequisites, reasons, and inevitability of its downfall and demise.
