Marcelo, I'm sure you're not doing it intentionally, but you're playing into the hands of those interested in making it all look very "clean", "technical" (or just procedural), fair, transparent etc. But some parts of some systems are rigged to be impenetrable from the outside. For example, sometimes a powerful org "representing manufacturers" makes it practically impossible to join (and thus impossible to contribute as an individual; does not belonging to a big org mean your experience is necessarily worthless?). You may say "these are the rules" and you are right in that, but the rules are not necessarily based on common sense or the greater good of the public. Ask yourself, who makes the rules?... There are lots of ulterior motives in these affairs. Not sinister maybe, but definitely not pure either.
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I'm not playing into the hands of anyone, in particular, because I do participate in theses things (for some decades now) and I know more or less how they work. It's a mix of society and business. This has been how historically society has been evolving, together with the business world.
For example, you say: " sometimes a powerful org "representing manufacturers" makes it practically impossible to join (and thus impossible to contribute as an individual; does not belonging to a big org mean your experience is necessarily worthless?).".
As I mentioned, there's different kinds of involvement. Usually individuals can participate in public consultations (open to anyone), but before that, when government creates these public consultations, they do not make them open to individuals, they usually make them open to groups representing interested parties. This is very common and a very reasonable approach (if you would draft a document with anyone, you would never get anything). So yes, this is simply common sense. Now, only because in the draft step you cannot participate as an an individual (and this would go into what you say - (and thus impossible to contribute as an individual; does not belonging to a big org mean your experience is necessarily worthless? - in this case, worthless is not the term, but unqualified or something is) this does not mean that the system is rigged. But the comments here seem to imply that there's a sinister scheme that closes these doors to any big company or companies that have money.
Unfortunately, although it's obvious that money play games and may get some advantages (for example, it's easier for a big corporation to spend money on travel and participation in several different places, which one person or small organization would not do), this is not the reality that I've seen participating in some of these discussions for some time.
I do understand the realities are different from country to country, but generally, these management practices are a basis for any work, government or not.