In this video clip, Shivesh Kuksal sets out the radical proposition at the heart of Rule O’Flaw’s litigation strategy: that private citizens can and should prosecute government agencies for unlawful conduct, not merely seek compensation from them. He notes that while the law draws no formal distinction between the government and the public regarding who may initiate enforcement proceedings, the practical reality is that citizens almost never do so. The customary response to government wrongdoing is to claim damages; the individuals responsible for the misconduct rarely face personal consequences.

Kuksal’s objective is to change this transactional equilibrium by pursuing punitive remedies against the specific public officials who commit unlawful acts—not merely the departments they represent. The underlying theory, grounded in the work of leading anti-corruption scholars, is that personal accountability for misconduct will act as a deterrent, making government actors more careful in the exercise of their powers. This approach, however, encounters formidable institutional resistance. Courts are uncomfortable with novel claims, judges are reluctant to impose punitive orders against government bodies for reasons that include career considerations and collegial relationships, and respondent agencies deploy every procedural mechanism available to obstruct, delay, and deflect.

Kuksal provides a detailed account of the adversarial tactics employed against Rule O’Flaw: the misuse of technicalities, the fabrication of procedural grievances, and the strategic exhaustion of the organisation’s resources through protracted interlocutory disputes. He characterises this as a standard playbook for corrupt institutional actors—one that is effective only because courts too often indulge it. Despite the pressure, Kuksal emphasises that the evidence against the government bodies in question is irrefutable and that the only avenue available to those bodies is procedural obstruction rather than substantive defence.

The work, Kuksal stresses, demands extraordinary precision and timeliness. Because the claims are serious and the evidence is strong, the government’s strategy depends entirely on exploiting procedural deficiencies—late filings, imperfect formatting, missed deadlines. The organisation therefore operates under a discipline that Kuksal likens, with characteristic candour, to a mission-critical operation in which every moment carries consequences.

The broader significance of this work is considerable. In common law jurisdictions, the gap between the theoretical availability of legal remedies and the practical capacity of citizens to invoke them is well documented. Kuksal argues that this gap is not accidental; it is maintained by the very institutions that benefit from it. By demonstrating that private prosecution of government agencies is legally permissible and strategically viable, Rule O’Flaw seeks to establish a precedent that could fundamentally alter the balance of power between the state and its citizens. The implications for the rule of law are profound: if individuals can credibly threaten to hold public officials personally accountable for misconduct, the cost-benefit calculus of corruption shifts decisively against the corrupt.