Public officials
Code of Conduct for public officials.
Lecture #4

¢Codes of conduct are transitions between clearly ethical and legal regulation of public
administration.
¢Why is ethic in public administration important?
—Ethic contributes on development of public services
—Ethic is necessary in the environment, where are increasing amounts of financial operations
—Ethic is necessary in the environment, where group of people (public officials) decides about
access of another group of people to the public goods, and also decides about others‘ rights and
duties.
—Ethic is also needed, because public administration work with personal and commercial data.
¢Ethical public administration is prerequisite for prosperity of society. Opposite influence has
corruption.
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IMPORTANCE OF ETHIC IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

¢Corruption causes following negative phenomenon:
—Rigid of public administration
—Chaotic system of rules
—Insufficient system of control
—Low quality of officials
—Clientelism
—Low participation of citizens
—Cult getting rich in a short time
—Low salaries of officials
—Corruption examples
—Creation of corruption clime
INFLUENCE OF CORRUPTION ON PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

¢Developed countries choose ethical regulation of public official‘s conduct as a method of
improving public administration.
¢Normative X Professional ethic
—Normative ethic study ‚‚what shall be, what is right, or good‘‘, deals with moral norms and tries
to find their justification.
—Professional ethic doesn‘t ask it selves ‚‚why is any conduct right?‘‘. Professional ethic just
ask, ‚‚what is right?‘‘
¢Criterion of correctness is agreement of majority, based on value and historical tradition
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IMPORTANCE OF ETHIC IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

¢Ethic of public administration serves for achieving of desirable behavior of public officials,
which is also called personal moral integrity.
¢Public official should be honest and immune. That  arises from:
—Sovereignty of power
—Suverenity of citizens
—Conception of public administration as a service to citizens
¢The most problematic are the areas of conflict between public and private interests
IMPORTANCE OF ETHIC IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION

¢Ethic of public administration isn‘t just moral appeal. It is tool set including:
—Complex control system
¢Institutionalized control
¢Wide social control
—Leadership.
¢Creating codes of conduct
¢Professional education, feeling of unity
¢Support from authorities, personal example.
—Management.
¢Creating ethical commissions
¢Creating consulting centers
¢Creating appropriate processes to dealing with complains
¢Creating system of sanctions for unethical behavior
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ETHICAL INFRASTRUCTURE

¢European commission and Council of Europe also deals with ethical issues of public administration
¢European commission created Code of Conduct and anticorrupcy agency ‚‚OLAF‘‘ ¢Council of Europe
created Rec.(2000)6 and (2000)10
ETHICAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION
EUROPEAN LEVEL

¢Professional codes of conduct allow moral and also disciplinary condemnation.
¢There are usually these principles in codes of conduct:
ETHICAL PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION