The Case for Parliamentary Ethics
Politics involves making decisions that harm or benefit vast numbers of people. Yet unlike other high-risk professions such as medicine, engineering, law or the military, politicians receive no training in ethics or ethical decision-making. While there are certainly arguments in favour of keeping Parliament free from external influences, a number of Parliamentary scandals over the last decade all raise the question — should there be ethical regulation in Parliament?
There is a ministerial code in Parliament. And there is a Parliamentary committee on standards. But it is one thing to have a code and a committee, and quite another to have the ethical principles in the code properly reflected in a political culture and in the conduct of members. This problem is illustrated starkly by the fact that since the codes implementation in 2009 we have seen expenses scandals, sexual harassment cases and, more recently, cases of bullying and mistreatment of staff.
In part, this may be because the purpose of the Committee on Standards is to ‘investigate allegations of complaints’ — an entirely reactive exercise. Once wrongdoing has happened, it is responded to. Yet proper ethical regulation cannot be entirely reactive — it requires proactively establishing an ethical culture, and seeking to prevent wrongdoing from taking place in the first instance.
The solution to this twofold — enforcement and education.
In other high-risk professions such as medicine or the law, trainee practitioners are required to undergo training in ethics and professional conduct. This is partly comprised of an education in ethics and decision-making. Practitioners are made familiar with classic dilemmas from medical and legal practice, given the time to discuss what they would do, what principles are relevant and reflect on the role of the medic or lawyer in such cases. This takes place in both formal education and subsequent continued professional development. And it is imposed and regulated by the professional bodies of the respective professions. As a result, lawyers and medics are skilled at identifying ethical issues and able to make defensible decisions in the face of moral dilemmas. And when these practitioners go into practice, any allegations of misconduct or malpractice are properly investigated, and heard in front of a regulatory tribunal, with resulting consequences.
The rationale for this is straight forward. Medics and lawyers have the potential to have a very significant impact on people’s lives — for better or for worse. And in the case of the latter, the consequences of malpractice or poor legal advice are so grave, that training in ethics and decision-making, along with the proper enforcement of the regulatory code, are essential.
Why doesn’t the same apply to politicians? They too have the potential to impact people’s lives hugely, for better or worse. And yet a career in politics does not require any formal education or training. As long as one is 18, a British or Irish citizen, and is elected to their constituency seat by enough people, then one has a place in Parliament, and the chance to have a significant say in policies that will shape people’s lives. To be sure, there is great virtue in this. In a healthy democracy, we want the seat of power to be open to anyone who has enough public support to get there. But there are also risks. And the absence of the ethical education and enforcement which is present in other high-risk professions serves only to compound those risks.
Why have we been reluctant to instil and enforce ethical regulation in Parliament?
One argument against the enforcement of ethical standards states that accountability is naturally built into Parliamentary procedures anyway. Parliament, on this view, is an adversarial setting where in the struggle for votes political parties are quick to highlight the misconduct of the other side. This disincentivises unethical or unprofessional conduct. All the while the eyes of the media are trained closely on Parliament, eagerly waiting for the next bit of lurid misconduct to spread over the front pages.
The fault in this argument is the overly-optimistic view that accountability and good conduct always go hand in hand. They don’t. We know from recent experience that accountability can lead to the opposite — undercover payoffs in bullying cases or even turning a blind eye in more serious cases of criminal misconduct. Accountability does not always lead to good conduct, it can promote denial, obfuscation and wilful ignorance.
Another argument against ethical regulation appeals to the concept of Parliamentary Sovereignty. In order to democratically legislate, the argument goes, Parliament must be free from any external influences that may unduly influence the ability of Parliamentarians to express the will of the people they represent. This principle has informed a number of legal conventions, most notably the ‘Parliamentary Privilege’ which dates back to the 1689 Bill of Rights. Parliamentary Privilege grants MPs rights to free speech, and immunity from any legal consequences of utilising that right.
Yet ethical regulation does not undermine free speech. Instead, it serves to instil principles of good conduct and decision-making that reflect how we want politicians in public life to comport themselves. Just as we do not want the doctor to swear in surgery, we don’t want the MP to swear in Parliament. Ethical norms do not restrict free speech any more than do norms of social etiquette. Instead, ethical norms make politicians more alert to the (sometimes hidden) moral problems of a political policy. And, given the legal immunity afforded by Parliamentary Privilege, instilling these ethical norms is arguably especially important. Politicians can say what they want (within the rules of politeness), but they cannot do what they want. On that point all are agreed.
A third argument against ethical regulation states that we do not want ethics in politics, because politics and ethics essentially do not mix. On this view, the nature of politics requires making difficult and morally challenging decisions when this is in the public interest. And a good leader acts on political instinct, the argument goes, rather than dwelling on the morality of a decision. I think it is possible to acknowledge that our elected officials should make decisions that sometimes push the boundaries of moral acceptability. But we should not draw the conclusion from this that ‘therefore moral norms do not exist in politics’. They do. As they do in normal life. Lying, cheating or stealing are not made acceptable simply if they are done by an MP. They are wrong in Parliament, as they are wrong on the high street. But it is still right to say that cases of moral conflict are more frequent in political life where certain moral norms are quietened, or outweighed, when there are other important things at stake.
This is familiar in other areas of professional decision-making. The doctor who must weigh their duty of confidentiality against the patient’s best interests when his 15 year old patient informs him she is pregnant, but does not want to inform her parents. The lawyer who must weigh her obligations between confidentiality and serving the interests of justice when her client tells her she committed the murder, but insists they want to plead not guilty. In these cases, we do not argue that doctors and lawyers should make decisions out of instinct, and ‘not worry about morality’. We want professionals to be cognisant of and skilled in navigating moral dilemmas. This is why ethics is part or their training. Professionals are equipped with the skills to acknowledge that moral norms sometimes conflict and cannot be reconciled, and they are given the skills and education to be able to make informed and well-reasoned decisions about what to do in the face of such moral conflict. With a properly enforced code of conduct to guide and back up that decision. This is what is missing in political life.
How often have we heard someone in public life plead that ‘I did what I believed was right at the time’. But doing what is right is not something that is plucked from the ether. And it cannot be left to instinct alone. Instinct can be trained and informed. And when it comes to difficult moral decision making, doing what is right requires properly thinking through what is at stake, what ethical and political principles apply, how they weigh against each other, and then deciding — on balance — what is the most defensible course of action.
The absence of any preparation in this kind of decision making increases the chance that politicians will choose courses of action that are indefensible. And at a time when trust in politicians is at its lowest, the lack of proper training around and enforcement of ethical standards, means that the public’s confidence in our democratic institutions is likely to remain low.
