Accountability

ACCOUNTABILITY

Who are we accountable to?

At work, we may be accountable to our employer.

In a marriage, we are accountable to our spouse.

In society, we are accountable to one another and, through our laws and institutions, to the community in which we live.

But there is another form of accountability that may be even more important.

We are accountable to ourselves—and to the highest moral authority we recognise.

Because there may be times when no employer is watching, no court is asking questions, and no one else knows what we have done.

But we know.

Accountability is not exhausted by obedience to law or authority: it requires each of us to answer for how we exercise judgment, especially when institutional demands conflict with conscience, evidence or justice.

However, there are really two kinds of accountability:

External accountability comes from outside us—employers, professional bodies, courts, Parliament, regulators, voters and ultimately the law.

Internal accountability comes from conscience—our own knowledge of whether we acted honestly and did what we believed was right.

But what happens when the two conflict?

What happens when external accountability fails?

A person may technically comply with the rules and still know that what they did was wrong.

Conversely, someone may be criticised or punished by an institution while believing that conscience required them to act as they did.

A police officer is accountable to a superior—but is that where accountability ends?

A forensic scientist is accountable to an employer—but what if scientific integrity requires them to disagree with that employer?

A prosecutor is accountable within an institution—but ultimately, what is their responsibility to justice?

A government is accountable to Parliament and ultimately the electorate—but what happens when the people affected by a decision have little power to demand an answer?

CAN WE PASS RESPONSIBILITY TO SOMEONE ELSE?

Does following someone else's instructions relieve us of personal moral responsibility?

If we believe that we are ultimately accountable to a higher moral authority, will it be enough to say:

“My minister told me it was right.”

“My parents taught me to think and act this way.”

“My superior told me what to do.”

Or are we ultimately accountable for the choices we make, including our decision to follow the advice and instructions of others?

We may learn our values from others, but ultimately, we must decide whether to live by them.

For some, the final accountability is to God.

For others, it is to conscience or an ethical principle they refuse to compromise.

Whatever name we give it, perhaps the ultimate question remains:

When nobody was watching, did I do what I knew was right?

So far, accountability may sound relatively simple: know what is right and have the courage to do it.

But what happens when two moral responsibilities point in opposite directions?

What happens when doing what appears right in one sense requires us to do something that appears profoundly wrong in another?

Consider an extreme hypothetical designed to isolate the conflict between an absolute prohibition and the prevention of catastrophic harm.

Does the End Justify the Means?

Imagine it is 1938.

You are walking along a deserted cliff top. Ahead of you stands Adolf Hitler, close to the edge.

Somehow—and this is important—you know with absolute certainty what history has not yet revealed: this man will be responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people.

One slight push would stop it.

Do you push him?

In 1938, you cannot punish Hitler for crimes he has not yet committed. You would be deliberately killing a man because of what you know he will do in the future.

Yet if you walk past, knowing with absolute certainty what will follow, millions will die whom you could have saved.

So which responsibility takes precedence?

Are you accountable to the law, which forbids you from killing him?

Are you accountable to your conscience?

Are you accountable to the millions of innocent people whose deaths you could prevent?

Or are there some actions that remain wrong regardless of the good we believe will result from them?

Does the end justify the means?

Of course, real life rarely gives us the absolute certainty of this hypothetical—and that makes accountability harder still.

Accountability becomes most difficult not when right and wrong are obvious, but when we must choose between competing ideas of what is right.

But Are Institutions the Only Ones Accountable?

It is easy to demand accountability from police, prosecutors, forensic scientists and governments.

But what about us?

The message we often send to our police is simple:

“We need to feel safe. We need offenders caught. We need to see justice being done.”

Those expectations are understandable. We expect the police to protect us, and when a serious crime occurs, we want answers.

But does public pressure for an arrest, a conviction and punishment create another danger?

What happens when the need to reassure the community begins to compete with the need to remain uncertain until the evidence justifies certainty?

If investigators feel pressured to produce a result, and that pressure contributes to the wrong person being convicted, where does accountability lie?

With the police officer who pursued the wrong suspect?

With the prosecutor who continued the case?

With the forensic expert whose evidence supported it?

With the media that demanded answers?

With politicians who promised results?

Or does some responsibility also belong to us—the public—when we demand certainty from a system that is dealing with uncertainty?

That does not relieve those entrusted with administering justice of their professional responsibilities. Public pressure cannot excuse a failure to follow the evidence. Indeed, the greater the pressure for a particular result, the greater the need may be for safeguards that preserve independence and objectivity.

If we demand immediate answers, absolute certainty and punishment before the evidence warrants them, can we completely distance ourselves from the consequences when the system gets it wrong? 

We began by asking who we are accountable to.

Perhaps accountability is not simply about finding someone to blame when things go wrong.

It is about being willing to examine the part we played in what happened.

We can explain our actions to our employer.We can explain them to an inquiry.We can explain them to a court.We can explain them to the public.

But can we explain them to ourselves?

The conclusion is simple but demanding: institutions remain responsible for preserving independence and objectivity under pressure, while citizens must examine how their demands shape that pressure. Accountability therefore reaches beyond blame to the part each of us played—and to the question only we can answer: when nobody else was watching, did I do what I knew was right?

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