Los kiesdrade
Los kiesdrade

Los kiesdrade

Dani Booysen
Tussen verkiesings is daar vyf jaar om enige wetlike vraagstukke op te los.

Sulke geskille mag nie op die laaste nipper opduik nie. Of is dit maar deel van Namibiese gewoonte om die kat nie lank genoeg voor die tyd uit die boom te kyk nie?

Die Verkiesingskommissie (ECN) se afdwing van ‘n wetlike vereiste wat voorheen nie toegepas is nie, kan vandag of môre tot ‘n dringende hofaansoek lei. Die soort spanning en wrewel is onnodig op die vooraand van ‘n verkiesing.

Grondwetskrywers het beslis met goeie rede beslis dat betaalde staatsamptenare, werknemers van staatsinstellings, lede van die Nasionale Raad, streekrade en plaaslike owerhede nie in die Nasionale Vergadering mag dien nie. Buiten vir moontlike magsmisbruike kan ‘n verkose leier nie twee “base” doeltreffend dien nie.

Die Kieswet van 2014 sê jy mag nie eens genomineer word as ‘n lid vir die NV nie indien jy onder die beperking val. Die ECN dring nou aan sy interpretasie is korrek en almal in die kategorie sal moet bedank om hul name op partylyste te hou.

Sowat vier maande verloop tussen ‘n verkiesing en die inswering van ‘n nuwe parlement. Verskanste grondwetlike waarborge soos die vryheid om ‘n beroep van jou keuse te beoefen, ‘n bestaan te voer en jou gesin te onderhou, kom met die eng toepassing van so ‘n diskwalifisering in spel.

Logika skryf voor ‘n bedanking behoort net afgedwing te word indien iemand inderdaad verkies word?

Die artikel van die Kieswet moes uit die staanspoor meer krities beskou gewees het.

So sê ander

Automating poverty: OK computers?

Across the world, governments are investing in machines that they hope will run their social security systems and other services more cheaply and effectively than humans.

The Guardian’s Automating Poverty series includes reports from the US, Australia and India as well as the UK. The articles reveal how automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence are extending their reach into people’s lives through the delivery of public services.

Given the suffering that even a single missed payment can cause to a vulnerable claimant, any glitches in such systems must be taken seriously.

One man ended up homeless after a computer stopped his payments on the basis of flawed data. In India, Motka Manjhi died after his biometric thumbprint key went unrecognised, leaving him unable to access the government food rations that he was entitled to.

But even were such technical hitches to be ironed out, or sufficient staff retained by government agencies so that flawed machine decisions could be routinely overriden, serious questions remain. One is whether, and in what circumstances, it is right for a government to replace employees with computers in its dealings with dependent citizens.

Even in a country with universal access to free secondary education there are significant barriers to any online service.

Technology is transformative, but its effects are not always beneficial.

Machine learning, like computers more broadly, may serve socially useful purposes. But such applications present moral and philosophical challenges as well as technical ones.

• THE GUARDIAN

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Republikein 2024-11-23

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