The finance minister does not have unlimited resources. Choices must be made. What is spent on defence cannot be spent on education. If the military budget is increased, other ministries must make do. What is more important, a submarine or a university?

The ministers are all there, each with a wish list of important matters urgently requiring funds. On-going projects require routine support, many with payments now due. Delayed projects dot the landscape, tacitly testifying to a paltry purse and misaligned masonry.

There are things no budget can do. When men are taken from their family by force, tortured till the turmoil takes their minds, pilloried like penned pidgeons by the public prosecutors, the budget cannot set these aright.

When strong sons are sent to serve, and sacrificed to save ambition's sins, this cannot be covered over by a budget item. The higher the sums paid to shield the shame, the more maddening are the screams for redress. Especially in an IT age, budgets cannot make pajero's fly. The widow knows ... she knows. And though the budget buys her land and builds a house, it cannot bring her husband home. The budget cannot find sufficient funds to bring a murdered father home.

The foundation of all fairness is to allow a man the freedom to defend himself. Though throngs of thousands throw stones of censure, and every day the names and charges reappear, the man must have his day. All the nation's honour, all the nation's pride, rest on this one crucial point.

Though the judge be injudicial, the charges all be lies; though the man be shackled, bruised and beaten, he must have his defence. The lawyers who defend him, though threatened and taunted for their brave and honest toil, uphold the nation's honour, restoring what remains of dignity and decorum.