“If men were angels, no government would be necessary”—James Madison, Federalist No 51

A wealthy country can absorb a modest financial loss without disturbing its national accounts. A heavily indebted country may struggle to finance medicines, classrooms and clean drinking water. Yet the capacity to withstand a loss tells us nothing about the right to permit it. Public money remains public money. Its protection should depend on a consistent standard of responsibility, rather than the size of the treasury or the political usefulness of the person handling it.

A circulating account of Norwegian parliamentary president Eva Kristin Hansen’s resignation offers an apparently irresistible illustration. In November 2021, she stepped down amid controversy over parliamentary accommodation. Reports contrasted a forty-kilometer eligibility threshold with a home twenty nine kilometers from Parliament. Forwarded messages turn this into a morality tale: a prosperous nation supposedly brought down a senior politician over eleven kilometers and a small apartment.

The missing ending matters. In December 2022, the criminal case was closed. Her lawyers’ published account of the prosecutor’s decision stated that investigators found no basis for alleging false or withheld information and that she satisfied the relevant guidelines as interpreted. Subsequent reporting said the Auditor General also found no benefits received contrary to the rules. To omit these developments is to confuse an allegation with an established wrong. 

Hansen’s experience supplies two lessons. Public benefits deserve scrutiny, however comfortable the national finances. Equally, scrutiny must remain answerable to evidence. A reputation should not remain permanently convicted after the proceedings have ended without an established offence. Accountability that cannot acknowledge its own mistaken assumptions becomes another form of injustice.

Britain provides a clearer example of proven misconduct. Former Labour MP David Chaytor received an eighteen month prison sentence in January 2011 after admitting false accounting........

© The Friday Times