The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7285 p154
7 February 2004

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  Dose alteration
  CD regulations
  New contract
  Clinical trials
  Dispensing
  Developing countries
  SOS action
  The Charter

Letters to the Editor

SOS action

Making a mockery of the democratic process

From Mr S. R. Axon, FRPharmS

Although I support much of what the Save Our Society group is pressing for as regards the representative role of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, I was saddened to read of the legal action that it is taking (PJ, 31 January, p109).

Hitherto, the SOS group has convincingly argued its case on democratic principles and appears to have received deserved support. However, taking legal action against individual Council members who voted in accordance with their conscience appears petty and vindictive in the extreme. Ironically, if, like some other pharmaceutical organisations and the Government, the Council was less transparent and the voting was not made public such action would not have been as easy.

Graham Phillips’s reported comment that this is “not an attack on the Society” is difficult to reconcile with the “cabinet responsibility” that underpins representative democracy and (what I understood to be) the decision-making procedure of the Council. Having fought their corner and lost to a democratic vote, the only way for a Council member to avoid the joint responsibility for the decision in such an important matter as this should be to resign (in the manner of the resignation of Robin Cook and others from the Government). If the action subsequently taken by the Council is deemed to be as flawed as suggested by the SOS group, legal action against the body responsible might well then be justified. Whatever the rights or wrongs of the case, taking legal action against individual members of Council seems like the SOS group wanting to sue the Council while retaining Council membership for its supporters, thus making a mockery of the democratic process.

If individual members of Council were to be singled out for criticism then, rather than the 16 who voted against the prevailing tide of popular opinion, as a democrat I would criticise those who abstained. Abstentions may be justified in the party political context but they are totally out of place in the committee/Council context, particularly where a matter as important as the future of the profession is concerned. I would have expected all Council members to have a strong view and to vote accordingly.

Stephen Axon
Amersham, Buckinghamshire

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