Any staff member who does not know ethics policy is a clay pigeon. „Clay pigeons“ are used to throw up in the air and shoot at.

The cycle is, goofs are made. The real WHY is not located or handled and when this happens angry executives, who have to pick up the ball, start shooting.

Staff members are expected to do their jobs and there are no excuses at all for not doing so.

But it sometimes happens that injustice occur. Goofs happen, then conditions are assigned, persons are removed from post or otherwise bashed about.

Usually this occurs because the staff member is pitifully ignorant of his rights.

Justice is expected and has definite use. When a state of discipline does not exist the whole group caves in. It has been noted continually that the failure of a group began with a lack of or loss of discipline. Without it the group and its members die.

Most people think discipline is bad because most wog disciple is simply harsh injustice.

Most people do not even know that „injustice“ means fair and equitable treatment for both the group and individual.

Commercial firms and credit companies have a level of injustice that is hard to believe. One is never faced by his accusers and may not even know he is accused until he is shot.

Psychiatry, as exposed in the brilliant book Manufacture of Madness by Dr. Szasz use the „justice“ procedure developed in the days of which burning, unknown accusers, opinions only, punished before being tried etc. Psychiatry influence on contemporary court thinking may well be a major reason for the present disturbed condition of society.

Lord forbid we ever fall into such barbarism ourselves.

It is injustice that destroys discipline.

When you indicate the wrong by-passed charge on a case the case caves in. When you accuse wrongly and punish unjustly the group caves in.

The truth is, Man cannot really be trusted with „punishment“. With it he does not really seek discipline, he wreaks injustice.

Many governments are so touchy bout their divine rightness in judicial matters that you hardly open your mouth before they burst into uncontrolled violence. Getting into police hands is a catastrophe in its own right in many places, even when one is merely plaintiff, much less the accused. Thus social disturbance is at maximum in such areas.

Only where a group has a buffer against injustice is it safe to use discipline.

Posts are valuable to staff. Sudden removals, false condition assignment and other actions can do more harm than they achieve good.

Reversely you can’t expect a staff to fall all over a goofing staff member whose lack of performance upsets the lines and productions. It does far more harm than good to let the situation continue without taking action.

Between the points of harsh injustice and required discipline there is a happy center ground where discipline, no matter how severe is just and where goofs are not tolerated.

The achievement of this middle ground depends less upon educating and restraining executives than upon the staff member knowing his rights and himself using them.

This is hard to get across because some senior can say „that policy doesn’t apply in this case“ or „you report this and I’ll have your head“ or „I don’t care what your rights are, you are REMOVED!“

Then again a review Committee of Evidence can be so slow it never handles in time or it never gets held.

We are living — or trying to — in a very unjust culture. So most of our basic training was in injustice not in correct discipline.

So you cannot look for a total perfection of justice. But we can make it better and less unjust.

„Recourse“ means „A turning or applying to a person or thing for aid or security“.

Not only can one turn to a person but one can turn to a thing or a procedure to set the matter right.

in investigating why certain persons who had been posted did not do their post it was found they had been told to do something else instead. They had done this something else. They did not know they had any „recourse“. Because they sought no recourse it had to be assumed they had willingly accepted illegal orders and so were Comm Eved.

Now what is this point „they sought no correction“ of this obviously illegal order? They simply did not make it known. They did not have to fly in the face of the person. They did not have to refuse.

The Comm Ev should have asked them „did you seek any recourse to being given an illegal order?“ If the answer was NO, they were a party to the damage. If the answer YES and they could prove it they would have to be found innocent of intent and the senior would have caught it.

What form would the recourse have taken?

A simple knowledge report to the Ethics Officer or the Master at Arms „I have been given different orders in conflict with my post assignment and have made it known but am having to follow the illegal order,“ would have proofed them against sever action.

By NOT taking recourse the junior thereby made himself a party to the act.

The above is not very effective as it does not correct the order and so some penalty would have leveled at the person.

At the other end of MAXIMUM RECOURSE there would have been a telex to the Assistant Aide at CLO or an Aide or Action Bureau at Flag stating „JOE BLOW ED WILL NOT LET ME TAKE MY POST AS HAS AS ORDERED BUT HAS MADE ME AN AUDITOR.“

Whether this was acted on or not, it would absolve the person. He or she would have „blown the whistle on“ his or her illegal orderer. He could not be punished for it or for taking the auditor post instead of the ordered HAS post.

To understand RECOURSE one would have to know the seniority of orders. Policy (in PLs) and HCOBs come first. Then there is Flag, Continental and local in descending order.

The org board tells one at a local level. The higher names are the more senior.

If a person does not SEEK RECOURSE for a wrong condition, a removal, an illegal order, a Court or a Comm Ev and, no matter how unjust the action is, the person has had it.

From a junior member of a mission:

„Dear Action Aide. This mission is going to fail. We are not following our orders, the I/C is not using my services. Signed ________“ would remove the person as an Interested Party in a Comm Ev IF SENT DURING THE TIME OF THE MISSION.

You can’t follow an illegal order and/or do other wrongs, get a Comm Ev and expect much help.

But if a Court or Comm Ev is wrong in its findings a person has RECOURSE. He can ask for REVIEW COMM EV and MUST receive one.

To remove a person from post and then give him a Court or Comm Ev him is out of sequence.

The person has to have a Court or Comm Ev before he can be removed.

To assign a condition and then also Comm Ev is also out of sequence. One assigns a condition or a Comm Ev.

Dismissals or offloads, once a person has been accepted as a staff member or crew member require a Court or Comm Ev.

If the findings are protested, there can be a Review or Comm Ev.

The Comm Ev can send the person to a Fitness Board or a Fitness Board can send a person to a Comm Ev.

A Fitness Board has the power to prevent taking someone on staff in the first place or someone into a crew. That needs con Comm Ev to reject.

BUT the person so rejected can ask for Review Comm Ev.

And if the person is on staff one cannot be „removed from post, sent before the Fitness Board and dismissed.“ It requires a Court or Comm Ev to remove from post and/or to send before a Fitness Board.

The best defence against any ethics action is good statistics. If one has no personal statistic he is in a bad position and a very eligible clay pigeon if something goes wrong.

When personal statistics is challenged as „unreal“ or „doesn’t fit“ or „falsified“ one should have his section or department or divisional stat in very good shape indeed and point to that (and not permit it to be bad) as it is more visible and reliable.

Anyone can request a Comm Ev on himself for anything. An example would be an interne removed from course who does not believe he failed. He can request a Comm Ev. If he can prove he didn’t he has to be restored.

If one is being shot at or regarded with contempt through false accusations his first action would be to ask the ethics officer or MA for a 3rd party investigation and if that didn’t work, request a Comm Ev to clear his name or repute. Or to get himself rightfully shot for that matter.

Example: Someone is being kicked around. He can’t handle it himself. So he requests a Comm Ev.

This MUST be given to him. And it must be SWIFT.

A person has a right to be tried only by seniors in rank or status.

Example: A Class VIII, on a tech matter, could not be legally tried by a Comm Ev whose chairman was a Class Zero.

Example: The Tech Sec cannot be tried by a Comm Ev chairman by a DofP or a Court held by one of his auditors.

An Executive Director or LRH Comm have to be tried by the next senior org and cannot be tried in their own orgs at all.

There have been flagrant violations of all these things. A CO and LRH Comm were once ripped off and sent home by being told it was „an LRH order“, which it was not. They did not stay on post and doe the normal things like „Let’s see it in writing, signed.“ Or „We must query Flag“ or „We request a Comm Ev.“ By NOT staying on post, by letting themselves be ripped off, by not using ANY recourse, they were actually guilty of desertion of post. They caught it from all sides BY NOT USING THEIR RIGHT.

Gold Stars and Green Stars have certain rights, in assignment of their own conditions. When they let these be ignored or flouted without taking any recourse they are guilt twice — they permitted injustice plus whatever else they did.

This is not a full list of procedures and legalities.

All that is being set out is that

DISCIPLINE IS NEEDFUL IN A GROUP

INJUSTICE INJURES DISCIPLINE.

INJUSTICE OCCURS WHEN PEOPLE PERMIT IT BY NOT KNOWING OR IGNORING THEIR RIGHTS AND NOT SEEKING RECOURSE OR REDRESS OR WRONGS.

It is a pitiful scene where executives and ethics officers don’t know or use correct justice and where the staff members are ignorant of their rights or don’t use them.

The result is a complete loss of discipline no matter how many get hanged! Or how many don’t.

So where ETHICS IS OUT one really need only check out Execs and ethics officers on ethics policy and check out the staff on their rights and some semblance of order will occur in the most disturbed scene.

THIS is the remedy for better discipline and prosperity in a group. Not more shooting of clay pigeons.

It can be made a calm happy scene.