Whistleblowers|Commencement
Managing one’s thoughts and ideas in a consistent and logical text is a pure art, and I am still on my long way to mastering it properly. Having found a perfect quiet place, where the rays of afternoon sun wrapped bookshelves and shaded the floor, I couldn’t put my thoughts together for more than 2 hours. I’ve got the feeling I have to share it with you; even if you are not interested in my writing process, it can somehow serve as an intro to this blog post.
The first time I’ve heard about «whistleblower» phenomenon was autumn of 2016. At that time I was dragged in adventure called «maybe you can handle the European Law Students’ Association (ELSA) Legal Research Group as National Group representative as well». The topic of the research was related to compliance issues and regulations in ELSA member states, and the group of enthusiasts (I had to find them first, launching the call for researchers), including me, had to present a result upon the research that would be integrated into Final Report — European Compliance Benchmarkof ELSA Legal Research Group. To tell it was challenging means to tell nothing. My understanding of basic concepts of compliance was close to zero, so the research looked more like a night before exam at Law school.
At some point I have realised compliance is a huge field for academic research and that’s how I got to PhD studies (actually, this blog is a sort of prequel to my PhD paper) — to explore «non-habitable spaces» of Ukrainian anti-corruption compliance within the framework of private legal entities activities. Here is where I learned more about whistleblowers. There will be several publications on the topic of whistleblowers, considering it [topic] in terms of ethics, law, the concept of martyrdom and public heroism.
«Whistleblower» is considered to be a person who exposes secretive information or activity that is deemed illegal, unethical, or not correct within a private or public organisation. However, initially, the notion characterised people blowing the whistle (thanks, cap) to inform about alarming situations or to draw attention to certain things, for example, fire, invasion, crime commission, breach of laws (like old-school policeman) and rules (like football referees). While discovering web sources in Ukrainian and English I have realised there is a need to rewrite Ukrainian chapter of Wikipedia and bring more clarity on the matter as geopolitical heritage of the last century granted us with «splendid» synonyms to the word «whistleblower», namely, rat, scammer, squealer, snitch etc., burdening people who were called «whistleblowers» with a kind of stigma. Whether informing on a colleague stealing pencils from work, illegal activities of ones boss, or disclosing abuse of power or state money embezzlement, all these actions could be described as snitching, but not as a good and necessary deed.
Unfortunately, whistleblowers remain to be the unfavourable society class, mostly and especially in countries with dictatorships and authoritarian regimes. Many of them faced condemnation, unlawful dismissal, prosecution and imprisonment. Subsequently, some countries (Canada, Australia, USA, UK, etc.) began initiating national campaigns on whistleblowers’ rights protection adopting relevant legislation and providing various social guarantees. Most of the laws secure whistleblowers, who report on corruption activities of public officials like members of parliament, judges, governors, government officials. Some of these laws grant protection to whistleblowers who are only public servants and disclose information on the wrongdoing only in public sector — within the institution of their service. The laws of the European Union and the USA are considered to be the best in the scope of protection mechanisms variety, categories of individuals, covered by such laws and methods for information discloser and further transfer.
Recently, Ukraine has increased the number of countries that internally regulated whistleblowers’ status and protection issues, but currently only in the area of preventing and combating corruption. January 1st, 2020 marked the milestone in corruption crimes investigations as the Law on amendments to the Law of Ukraine On Corruption Prevention concerning whistleblowers came into force. The Law provides for rights and protection guarantees for whistleblowers, mechanisms for information discloser, check-up procedure under disclosures and remuneration issues. A detailed review of the Law will be proposed within further publications and as for now we shall be thrilled anticipating this Law in action.
Along with adoption of legislation protecting whistleblowers the establishment and development of IT-security measures also takes place: there are different types of software encrypting the conversations and anonymising whistleblowers’ identities. For example, Ethicontrol suggests solutions for companies to prevent, target and combat corruption, conduct conflicts of interest check-ups, conduct internal investigations and provide opportunities for background check of contractors and employees. GlobaLeaks, WhistleB, Whispli are alternative software solutions for whistleblowers and secure reporting.
The last but not least, the cover picture with Donald Trump is actually relevant to the topic. The scandal that I guess everyone already knows about (request for favour to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden activity concerning Ukraine as of 2014) came out due to the whistleblowers’ reports (there is a suggestion that there were two different whistleblowers, USA intelligence officials) that launched the impeachment process. In conclusion, despite the outcome, there wouldn’t be any measures taken unless the whistleblowers brought it to public.
