As a part of the WT judicial
arrangement, for many years there was a sort of review procedure called Special
Committee; basically if a person was not happy with a decision or a particular
situation they were allowed to write a letter to the Society raisin their
concerns.
The majority of these
complaints were answered with a standard letter with the counsel of “leave
matters to Jehovah”. In some instances the matter was serious enough to warrant
the need for a special investigation of the case to be done by a Special
Committee.
At one time the
travelling overseers were part of this arrangement; eventually they were dropped
out of these cases due to the fact of their tremendous input on the decisions
and also the implications when a wrong decision was reached.
The reason behind this
procedure was that in matters that were really complicated it was not fair to
make a decision based in letters and the clearest way was to have “boots on the
ground”. Normally a group of local brothers, appointed for this duty heard the
cases and make recommendations to the Branch. The majority of these
recommendations were accepted and after his procedure the problems were solved.
The arrangement was
not perfect but is was transparent and provided in some instances relief for
the aggrieved party. The procedure was ended without an explanation and I
wonder if some of the most experienced contributors know the reasons for the
decision to end these reviews.