>To the extent that the population (in a democratic society) acts in bad
>faith and permits bad decisions to be made by its representatives, which
>cause suffering, surely the public must be held accountable for their
>behaviour? There is no difference in principle between the unlawful
>decisions of a private company, with the consent of shareholders who stand
>to gain from the decision, and similar behaviour by public agencies.
This implies some sort of an objective standard ("natural law") against which "human laws" are judged. It comes dangerously close to the Catholic doctrine and, ironically, neoliberalism. This is an intellectually appealing position, because it establishes a uniform set of criteria to evaluate laws and public agencies that promulgate or enforce them, but unfortunately defining this set of criteria is a bit of a problem. For the Catholics, the natural law is what the Church hierarchy says it is, for the neo-liberals - what the captains of industry and the cabal of their academic supporters say it is - but these are far from being universally accepted.
I am more inclined toward the Hobbesian position - the law is what the ultimate authority (the government) says it is and society accepts it. Thus there are no "inalienable rights" "good" or "bad" laws etc.- only the rights, responsibilities and privileges that a society and its governing institutions are willing to extend to its members. For example, if this society and its governing institutions pass the law that sociology is a form of witchcraft and its practicing is punishable by imprisonment, I may think it is a bad law (just as many people think of the 55 mph speed limit) and try to influence the public to change it, but that law per se is the law - neither good nor bad, but binding until society and its institutions decide otherwise. If I do not succeed in changing it, I always have an option of becoming and economist or a gardener, or going to the greener pastures where sociologists are welcome.
You cannot sue the society and its government for promulgating such a law (although you may take actions to change it), because this would imply the existence of some superior legal standards by which current laws can be judged. In the absence of any objective methods of establishing such superior standards, this open the flood gate for anarcho-individualism that prevails in today's collective consciousness in this country - everyone using his/her own standard of what the "just law" ought to be, following the law only to the extent that suits their interests, looking for every possible excuse to avoid responsibility for their own action or inaction, and seeking personal exemptions from the existing laws as they see it fit. I think that collectively people are better off with Hobbesian Leviathan than anarcho-individualism, which always creates ample opportunity for a few unscrupulous individuals to screw the rest.
wojtek