Democracies are seldom overthrown in a single night anymore. More often, accountability is worn down piece by piece — each step defended as an emergency measure, an efficiency, or a response to enemies.
Familiar warning signs
Courts and auditors described as obstacles rather than safeguards.
Journalists treated as opponents to be discredited instead of answered.
Rules changed by those who benefit from the change.
Emergency powers that never quite expire.
Criticise systems, not humanity
The answer to abuse of power is not to dehumanise the people who hold it, or the citizens who vote for them. It is to insist, patiently and with evidence, that power remains answerable — to law, to the press and to the public.
Accountability is not hostility. It is the ordinary maintenance of a free society.
What ordinary people can do
Follow what your representatives actually decide, not only what they say. Support independent journalism. Join, or start, local efforts that ask clear questions and publish the answers.
Written by
Tomáš NovákSample contributor. Writes about democratic institutions and the history of accountability in Central Europe.
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