BY
Despite the unnecessarily
fumbled launch of the e-declaration system for Ukrainian politicians, public servants and
judiciary – and despite the fact it has now been launched (again) with effect
from 1st September now duly certificated, but with some technical issues still
unresolved, it does appear that the system is working to some
degree at a practical level with regard to corruption
prevention for those that require reappointment/re-certification (judiciary,
some civil servants, etc.).
“We tested more than a thousand judges who were on
re-certification and 30% of judges were not reassigned to positions due
verification of declarations.
The system actually worked, and will be actively used
in conjunction with the National Agency for Prevention of Corruption” – A.Sytnik, Director, National
Anti-Corruption Bureau.
Very good. Support
for NABU and NAPC has to remain robust if they are to overcome the entrenched
vested interests that they are up against. Likewise, when the
e-declaration system is eventually without system integrity and functionality
issues, it will be a very robust tool.
But is the e-declaration
tool only to be employed within the remit of NABU and NAPC anti-corruption
crusade?
There may also be some
other legitimate and ethical uses for the information held upon the
e-declaration system – specifically relating to the political class.
Within this month’s
issue of The
Odessa Review, the
blog threw together a few lines regarding the ethical void within Ukrainian
politics, and the requirement to arrive at some form of officially recognised
Code of Ethics for parliamentarians (as well as disciplinary possibilities for
those that chose to violate and/or simply ignore such a Code).
For those interested the
article can be found on pages 34 and 35, offering a few broad brush strokes
regarding issues and some possible remedies. Within the text can be found the
following few lines – “There are
numerous areas of overlap between anti-corruption legislation and any future
parliamentary ethics code. Conflicts of interests, lobbying, advocacy,
vested interests……do not constitute an exhaustive list of issues where ethical
and legislative can be smudged.”
It is inevitable that
sooner or later a parliamentary Code of Ethics will appear.
It is equally
inevitable that some parliamentarians will spend far more time and effort
trying to manipulate such a Code than the time they spend running the country.
The same will be true of e-declarations. There is no perfect
system, and there are no limitations to the ingenuity of those that try to
circumvent and/or undermine any system to their own advantage.
However, when a parliamentary Code of Ethics
eventually appears, together with a parliamentary ethics (and disciplinary)
committee, if the ethics committee have access to all parliamentary
e-declarations then the conflicts of interests (or perhaps better stated, the
lobbying to sit upon parliamentary committees that oversee the vested interests
of those trying to get placed within the relevant parliamentary committee)
would be abundantly clear to an ethics committee that then could and should
publicly raise any conflict of interest – or simply prevent it.
The aim therefore to
employ information within e-declarations of parliamentarians to insure no
conflicts of interest for members within any parliamentary committee – or
certainly prevent nefariously hidden/masked conflicts of interest.
A default position may
be that any potential or existing conflict of interest prevents membership of
any relevant parliamentary committee and/or would require resignation from a
parliamentary committee should conflicts arise after assuming committee
membership. Any exceptions would require a public ethics committee
debate.
Naturally this does not
mean that vested interests will fail within the Verkhovna Rada, for those
vested interests can still buy/rent the necessary parliamentary votes to
protect their scams and schemes. The point is to make defending/expanding
those vested interests more difficult (and/or expensive) to achieve every
single step of the way – and any Code of Ethics should have something to say
about selling/renting an MP’s parliamentary vote and the consequences thereof.
Perhaps a consideration
for the (hopefully fairly immediate) future when the existing void of Verkhovna
Rada ethics will inevitably be tackled?
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