The concept of the Sho-ura Council as an integral part of our government is something that we cannot afford to lose. Moreover, every effort should be made to ensure the strength and viability of the Shoura Council. It is, essentially, the governmental body that mediates most directly between the people and the sovereign power; as such, the Shoura represents us much as the king himself governs and cares for us. It is a symbiotic system.
All great monarchies in the history of the world have had a body of trusted advisers working closely with the king or the queen. In olden days, however, the identity of those advisers was a matter of strategic social positioning and, often, cutthroat politics. If no established process exists which chooses advisers, or if there is no set number of advisers, one can be sure, human nature being what it is, that some degree of corruption will ensue. Most often it is a question of powerful families jockeying for position to get as close to the monarchy as possible. Drenched in their own political aspirations and hunger for power, they are not in a position to offer the monarch valuable and needed advice.
The Shoura Council, by contrast, is orderly and equitable, with a set number of seats and a proportion of these seats for women. In short, the Shoura Council is designed so as to be an optimal group of advisers to our king and to bring knowledge and experience to the all-important task of interpreting laws.
Regarding the knowledge that these qualified individuals are imbued with — it has been noted, for example with regard to the 2009-2013 council, that the majority of members are often educated outside of the country. In that case, almost half of the members had been educated in the United States and others in a whole roster of other countries around the world as well as here at home. But far from being a failing, I believe that this is one of the strongest features of our Shoura Council.
There is little chance that its views and opinions will become closed, narrow or parochial if there is so much diversity with regard to the educational background of the members. Moreover, the members of the council represent the acquired wisdom of the great education systems of the world, as well as our own. We could hardly be better represented than by a council that is so cosmopolitan in its outlook.
The prevalence of highly educated individuals, including many with PhDs, reminds me somewhat of Plato’s famous ideas about rulership as laid out in his Republic.
