Unit 5 Learning Objectives

What does misconduct in the legislature look like?

After studying this unit you should be able to:

• Provide a definition of misconduct;

• Explain the concept of conflicts of interest;

• List the main provisions of conflict-of-interest statutes;

• Discuss circumstances, which may be seen as corruption, bribery or extortion.

Introduction

In the last unit you considered how institutions like Parliament aim to avoid misconduct, or deliberate wrongdoing, through codes of conduct and ethics. But what is meant by misconduct? How is it realized for parliamentarians? This unit considers what is meant by misconduct, with particular attention paid towards the most common forms, conflicts of interest. We argue that the notion of conflict of interest was developed in the English tradition of common law.  In this tradition the behavior of public officials is regulated by the rules of trust, which establish that government officials cannot have either direct or indirect interests in government decisions and must always act exclusively in the interest of the public.  Hence, under this tradition, if a government official has a direct or indirect interest in a government decision, they are not permitted to participate in the decision-making process. Today, the severity varies from country to country. But overall, conflict of interest rules intend to prevent parliamentary misconduct, and to some degree, this rule is applied in almost all government regimes. Some attention in this unit will be paid to those circumstances that may facilitate the emergence of conflicts of interests, to the steps that may be taken to prevent conflicts of interests from emerging, and, finally, which solutions should be adopted to solve conflicts of interests.