The Water Lease, Disconnections, and Civil Disobedience
In a city of 400,000, the council leases the public water utility to a private company for 10 years. The company raises the connection fee from 15,000 to 25,000 CFA francs and the monthly minimum charge by 40%. It says the money is needed to repair pipes that lose 35% of water. Within six months, 2,300 poor households have been disconnected, and a cholera outbreak affects a neighbourhood where standpipes were removed. The council says the contract is legally binding and will improve service. A citizens’ coalition argues the lease is illegitimate and organises a boycott of payment. The council has held no public hearing, and the contract’s tariff formula is confidential. The mayor asks: On what principles can the lease be judged legitimate or illegitimate?
1. Assess the legitimacy of the lease using social contract theory and one theory of distributive justice. Consider both procedural and substantive legitimacy.
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Procedural legitimacy: Social contract theory asks whether the governed could reasonably consent. No public hearing, a confidential tariff formula, and a legally binding 10-year lease suggest the affected poor had no voice. Legality is not legitimacy. Substantive justice: Rawls’s difference principle permits inequalities only if they benefit the least advantaged. A 40% minimum-charge rise, 2,300 disconnections, and cholera after standpipe removal make that claim hard to sustain. A Nozickean entitlement argument would ask whether the lease and tariff arose from just acquisition and transfer; even then, basic water access and emergency health may constrain contract rights. Institutional role: The utility’s 35% loss is a real problem, but the burden should not fall disproportionately on those least able to pay. Verdict: The lease is procedurally weak and substantively unjustified as currently designed; it could become legitimate through transparent renegotiation, lifeline tariffs, and independent oversight.
2. The coalition proposes civil disobedience: refusing payment while continuing to use water. Using at least two criteria for justified civil disobedience, evaluate this tactic.
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Criteria: justified civil disobedience typically requires a clear and serious injustice, exhaustion of lawful channels or their futility, publicity, nonviolence, proportionality, and willingness to accept legal consequences. Application: The injustice is serious: disconnection and cholera affect health and life. But the coalition has not yet shown that courts, regulators, or council motions are futile. Continuing to use water without payment is not purely nonviolent in effect; it shifts costs to the utility and may provoke retaliation. Verdict: A targeted, public refusal to pay the unlawful portion-while paying the old tariff into escrow-is more defensible than a total boycott. It protests the tariff, preserves revenue for repairs, and accepts accounting. A total nonpayment campaign could be justified only if lawful routes are exhausted and the campaign protects vulnerable households; otherwise it risks free-riding and undermines the utility’s ability to fix the 35% loss.