Misjudgements will happen no matter what, and it's not like it's an either-or proposition. It's perfectly possible to have a set of guidelines that can be used

Misjudgements will happen no matter what, and it's not like it's an either-or proposition. It's perfectly possible to have a set of guidelines that can be used together with common sense, but no matter what people should have the authority to _fix the problem_. The root problem in this instance wasn't using common sense to allow someone into the conference, it was a complete failure to find a satisfactory solution to the problem. Had the wife been told to wait in the meeting room, that would suck but would probably not have ended up causing a shitstorm.