Doesn't all of this demonstrate how vulnerable to individual personalities and prejudices most, if not all, forms of human judgement are, including that of the Watchtower? I used to think the JWs in general, and the elders in particular, were above the crippling legalistic pettiness they accuse others of displaying . How naive I was.
How laudible then that many "wordly" governments have provision for independent commissions of inquiry, or ombudsmen, as protections against human error and power abuses - provisions scarily absent from the Watchtower.