This reminds me of the 'Jack Bauer fallacy' I sometimes talk about in the context of terrorism. It is correct that the public, in the throes of a crisis, sometimes signal that they want officials to 'throw off the red tape' and 'dispense with niceties to get things DONE'...
https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1402576707786350595
... and the most recent example pre COVID was the ticking bomb - you think a suspect has the location... do you torture? The argument for: we will save lives if the torture works. Argument against: we will fall below an essential standard that democratic societies don't torture..
... and you see this argument over public procurement. "Yes of course we broke the rules, wouldn't you have? I had a mate who could provide 200m masks tomorrow, no time for niceties... we saved many lives!" The approach is superficially attractive as how can you argue against...
... saving lives? But it's probably a fallacy. The reason you have public procurement rules against preferential treatment for mates is that it is an essential principle of a liberal democracy that public money isn't spent in a corrupt way, and it is clearly corrupt to dispense..
... with rules in a way which benefits your mates with large contracts (and whilst your intentions are relevant for any potential punishment they are not determinative of whether corruption has occurred). Now there will be instances where the 'red tape' is so absurdly...
... entangling that it prevents any decision making within a tight timescale, and I think that is the govt's basic argument here. But like the ticking bomb example, we set down rules and red lines in good times to help decision making in the bad times where the rules are...
... arguably even more important. And making out that the 'lawyers' or 'judges' are responsible for this by being the messengers when rules are broken is fallacious too. If you want to change the rules, you are the government, go ahead! It's not the lawyers' fault that you didn't
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