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ACTING TOGETHER AGAINST CORRUPTION Tales From History - a Transparency International Australia Perspective Peter Willis Barrister Director, Transparency International Australia* As you know, just over 2 centuries ago, modern Australia was founded as a jail for the criminals which the United Kingdom could not accommodate in its own prisons. The government of Australia's colonial power, at an earlier time, was once described as: a government of extravagance, waste, corruption and vice ... Unprecedented sums of money were squandered ... Titles and government offices were bought and sold. Through monopolies, tax-farming and the appropriation of public land for private purposes the entire national economy was fleeced by parasitic rulers and their cronies. In its first days Australia was run by a military oligarchy which ran the country in its own interests. In due course Australia developed a civilian form of politics and inherited its system of government from the country in which such corruption once existed. Notwithstanding such promising beginnings, Australia is now perceived as being one of the least corrupt countries in the world (see Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index). How, then, has Australia achieved this position, and what systems have been created to guard against corruption in government? This paper rests on a study of Australian history to draw conclusions about how Australia has sought to build clean government. There are at least six attributes of Australia's system: the honest elections of honest politicians; the presence of honest, neutral, and qualified public servants; auditing and accountability of public receipts and expenditure; independent investigation and adjudication of complaints against government; free access to information; and finally, the independent prosecution of crimes and the presence of independent, unbiased, and honest judges. These are not the only elements underpinning clean government. The Rule of Law (respect for the independent and impartial application of the law) and a vigorous and free press are also vital, as is the capacity of citizens to organise and meet freely in vigilant, active and questioning social organizations. Oooooo00000oooooO TI has found that corruption, and its forms and mannerisms, is not unique to any one country. The lesson from Australia is that laws and good intentions are not enough; structural and moral reforms must also be part of the solution. Let us turn to some of the areas in which we in Australia have learnt that lesson. HONEST ELECTIONS OF HONEST POLITICIANS 'A Member of Parliament is the watch-dog of the public; and Cerberus must not be seduced from vigilance by a sop1' An elected national parliament lies at the heart of any integrity system, based on democratic accountability. Its task is simply stated: to express the sovereign will of the people through their chosen representatives, who, on their behalf, hold the Executive Government accountable on a day-to-day basis. Watchdog, regulator and representative, the modern parliament is at the centre of the struggle to attain and sustain good governance and to fight corruption. To be fully effective in these roles, parliament must be comprised of individuals of integrity. If the national assembly is seen as a collection of rogues who have bought, bribed, cajoled and rigged themselves into positions of power, a parliament forfeits whatever respect it might otherwise have enjoyed, and effectively disables itself from promoting good governance and minimizing corruption--even if it wants to do so. Clean elections and clean Parliamentarians do not guarantee honest and clean government, nor do they eliminate all corruption. They can only reduce its extent, significance and pervasiveness. Eighty years ago, in a case on a corrupt politician accused of selling access to Ministers, an Australian High Court judge wrote: 'Comment has been made on the peculiar fact that there are so very few cases bearing directly on the bribery of members of Parliament. Unfortunately, it can not be said that this is testimony to the virtue of members; for according to [history textbooks], bribery of members was often exercised, and especially by King William III, out of secret service funds.' Put most simply, bribery of members of the United Kingdom Parliament was not the aberration of single reign. Out and out corruption was the main means of securing election to Parliament and of forming Government and of keeping in Government for over a hundred years [from 1660 - 1790 CE]. For fifty years longer, election to Parliament remained a haphazard and gerrymandered affair, culminating in a great battle to create full democratic elections and the Reform Act of 1832. The battles to clean up elections and systemic bribery in the United Kingdom underlie much of Australia's Constitution in which there are special provisions on misbehaviour and illegality and conflicts of interest by Members of Parliament. 'Ministers and magnates imposed some sort of pattern by 'influencing' the elections ... A member toed the line because of one, or a combination of devices' - the conferral on the member or a friend or relation (or, at least, the promise of) a range of perks, contracts, pensions and paid inducements which would make our head spin. Not only were governments bought, but elections too: Thus Lord North, Prime Minister could write to King George III accounting for the election of 1782: 'the whole expense is £103,765/ 15s/ 9d, ... a sum larger, but not very considerably larger than has been paid on other such occasions of similar nature...' This was an enormous sum-not spent on official Electoral Commission machinery, but in paying candidates and the controllers of the seats. The great saving of the English Parliament throughout the century was that the managers controlled less than half the votes and despite the corruption, there was a culture of intellectual independence, a tolerance of dissent and acceptance of the rise and fall of Parties. The paradox, as expressed by one law reformer, was that buying a seat in Parliament out of your own resources was 'almost the only mode by which Parliament was accessible with honour to those who had no family connection' or local patron. There were thus clean bribes and tainted bribes (with strings attached)! HOW CHANGE CAME ABOUT Periodically over a century [from 1729 to 1832], titanic battles were fought, little by little to overcome these deeply embedded features. Persistently, the reforms were piecemeal, inconsistent, full of loopholes and fiercely resisted. They came in bursts after long lulls, not in a continuous stream. Naturally resistance came from those whose interests were threatened; but it also arose from those who were concerned at the by-products of the proposed reforms and from fear of the unknown and from reaction to the flaws and tactics of the reformers. Further, the pattern often required some overwhelming scandal or crisis to galvanize opinion or provide the impetus for the final battle, bringing the doubters and the 'middle' across to the side of the reformers. The first great wave of systematic reforming legislation [in 1782 to 1785], was catalyzed by a famous denunciation of patronage by the Executive power and corruption in the public service and government. This debate was led by two famous parliamentarians of great ability and bravery. The leading speech was privately published in pamphlet form and was immediately and widely distributed (there was no official public record of proceedings in those days), building widespread support among voters and the non-voting general public alike. This provided an impetus to break down the century-long procedures and habits. Yet the battle for 'Economical Reform' took several generations to work its way through the English political system. Accompanying the campaign was a high profile prosecution for corruption of a public official by the House of Commons. This was the impeachment of the Governor-General of Bengal (Warren Hastings), excruciatingly drawn-out in the Upper Chamber of Parliament between 1788 and 1795. Although ending in exhausted acquittal, this impeachment too played its part in warning those who were corrupt that there had been a the change in sentiment and standards. Irony abounds and reminds us that there is no inexorable law of progress, however much it all appears a neat process in hindsight: the initial period of reform was interspersed by an election at which the Prime Minister was assured by the King's parliamentary agent that a favourable majority would be obtained through bribery of the voters. LIFE AFTER REFORM - THE AUSTRALIAN INHERITANCE Australia inherited these developments when the British Colonies in Australia achieved self-rule or 'representative government' (elected law-making parliaments and elected Ministries) from 1851 onwards. Notwithstanding these great changes, late Colonial and the early twentieth century provincial politics seemed filled with corruption and dubious transactions. Equally from contemporary times, there are enough examples of corruption of members of Parliament and Ministers (nearly always at the provincial level only), to remind us of the temptations and occasions of power, and the need for vigilance to prevent corruption. The earliest recorded conviction of an Australian politician for bribery that I have found after the grant of responsible government in 1851 is in 1875: it involved an attempt to bribe a NSW MP to vote in favour of a compensation claim for land damaged by goldminers and cattle. The bribe was £20. Thereafter, late Colonial and the early post-Federation state politics seems filled with corruption and dubious transactions. In Victoria, none was more controversial or brazen than the market gardener's son turned land-speculator and railway promoter, MP (Speaker and eventually Premier) Sir Thomas Bent. Although looked upon askance by the respectable opinion of the day and criticized strongly in the press at the time, he remained generally untouchable and led a charmed life, blustering and bullying his way out of tight spots for over 40 years. In New South Wales, rural rather than metropolitan land and commodities dealings by and through MPs, influence peddling and bribing Ministers led to a series of Royal Commissions throughout the first 20 years of the twentieth century. The Minister for Lands at the turn of the century was found to have accepted half of amounts paid to land agents by clients for leases which he admitted breached the relevant Land Acts. The Royal Commission found the Minister had received £27,600 in cash during his 3 years in office; another MP who was a land agent had £20,300 unexplained .The Minster, the MP and a private agent were all charged with bribery. The jury could not agree and the Government dropped the charges and allowed the Minister to 'retire' from Parliament voluntarily. He was disbarred from legal practice and died in disgrace. The whole affair only came to light when an unhappy client sued in the Courts for the return of his payments. Notwithstanding this example, another NSW Parliamentarian was charged, with 2 others (and their clients, unknown), with agreeing to accept and offer 'large sums of money' to the MP for him to influence the Minister for Lands to inspect and purchase land. Further scandals erupted in NSW within a few more years, leading to an independent judicial investigation (Royal Commission) into construction contracts and other operations of the state Wheat Board. This left a cloud over the Minister for Agriculture, a personal friend of some of the tenderers under investigation. (There was then an election-eve attempt to bribe a member of the Opposition, with an offer of £500 for him to vote to close the Wheat Board enquiry down.) The recent experience of a leading businessman and media owner in Tasmania, convicted for attempting to bribe an Opposition MP, so as to allow the retiring Government to remain in power after the 1989 State election produced a Parliament potentially controlled by minorities, is a recent and more overtly 'political', but nonetheless classic, example of the perversion of democracy which bribery of MPs threatens. Other convictions of recent times include the NSW Minister for Corrections who took bribes for the early release of prisoners and the property developer and the Queensland Minister for Local Government who respectively paid and received 2 bribes of $50,000 each for influencing a local council to facilitate a large building development. It is not my desire to provide a catalogue of single instances of when corruption survived or broke out of its containment. But the list shows that the temptation of corruption is everpresent. Accordingly, in the 1980s, 2 Australian provinces (states - New South Wales and Queensland) have created standing, Independent Commissions Against Corruption. Modelled on those in Hong Kong and Singapore, these institutions have been very active in education and enforcement by investigation. They have police and judicial powers, to force witnesses to testify and are fiercely and operationally independent of Government. They investigate the highest and the lowest in Government whenever there is a suggestion of wrong-doing. Indeed the test of the effectiveness of a corruption eradication commission is whether it is free to treat the government and opposition alike. No one has a monopoly on virtue and all must be equal before the law and subject to the reach of such a Commission. The Australian Commissions have been very successful. Honest, neutral and qualified public servants 'The corruption of public servants is a great evil, capable over time of undermining community values and stability'2 INTRODUCTION Parliaments and Ministers make laws, but they do not administer them. So 'Government' naturally and essentially encompasses those who administer the laws: the Public Service. The origins of the mechanisms which in Australia are designed to ensure a corruption-free Public Service are as tortured as those which aim to ensure corruption-free Parliamentarians. As we have already seen, eighteenth century English Government was based on an elaborate web of what the polite call 'patronage', but which we can call corruption. At that time, the Secretaries and Under-secretaries of State, the senior government servants of the day like so many other characters in constitutional history, were at some stage in the metamorphosis from personal servant to state official. It was only the gradual removal of the Crown from daily political battle which led in equal measure to the removal of the body of the public service from partisan politics. Thus a step towards the 'neutrality' of the public service which we take as a bulwark of our version of democracy. Two barriers to the creation of our modern public service remained. They are telling. First, in the eighteenth century, 'it was well accepted that an office constituted a form of property, particularly the longer and more secure the tenure and the more pronounced the rights and pecuniary benefits attached to it. Moreover, the recruitment of the public service remained locked in the patronage system. In summary, said the prime designer of the modern meritocratic public service in the UK, the public service was staffed with 'sickly youths whose parents and friends ... endeavour to obtain for them employment in the service of the Government ... where they may obtain an honourable livelihood [that is, a good salary] with little labour and no risk ...' With the support of one leading reforming Minister, a group of officials, zealots at the heart of Whitehall, waged a 15-year campaign to change the whole Civil Service. Eventually Parliament commissioned a Report, which established the prime features of the 'Westminster' model of the public service or civil service: entrance based on merit (competitive examinations) rather than patronage and connection, and a series of rules and expectations, to create and govern a body of advisers with 'sufficient independence, character, ability and experience to be able to advise, assist, and to some extent influence, those who are from time to time set over them'. As the foremost modern Whitehall-watcher puts it: 'Once achieved, the principle of the great reform - that recruitment to the Civil Service should be determined by merit and not by connection - acquired the status of a self-evident truth. Yet it did not appear that way to substantial sections of Victorian society, from the Queen down, and it was long in the making, careful in the planning and hard-fought in the implementation'. If there were any lesson for us to bear in mind as we struggle to put in place anticorruption reforms and institutions, this passage, and the 15 years of work it summarises, contains the most important. It reminds us that what is commonplace and unquestioned for us today has been controversial and a close-run thing in times past. Some reform campaigns fail ever to get off the ground, while others attract leaders and writers of genius; others fail at later stages, for lack of follow - through. I urge all friends of reform to have courage - even if reform is long in the making, if you are careful in the planning and fight hard in the implementation you will triumph. THE CRIMINAL LAW As well cultural institutions, there is also the criminal law. In Australia, legal historians can trace the origins in English law of the offence of misconduct in public office back 800 years. However, this makes laws against official corruption sound stronger and more developed than it was. The systematic application of the offence of misconduct in public office and its development were cemented in a period stretching from the early years of the 1700s and through to the middle of last century. They can be traced back to early medieval times, with little real impact on public morality as a whole. This is because, historically, the laws against bribery and corruption in large part were designed to prevent and punish individual misbehaviour - embezzlement in the personal interest of the embezzler, dereliction of duty of a kind out of the ordinary for the standards of the day (recognizing that those standards were not those of today at all). No lasting attempt was made to reform institutional behaviour or social standards. And of course, even with the best laws, individual cases of corruption remain, with terrible results. In 1994 a civil servant at Britain's Ministry of Defence, was imprisoned for four years for taking at least US$2.25 million in bribes. But in an analysis carried out for TI-UK, he is said to have caused up to US$200 million in financial damage. This included the cost of job losses at the factory in Britain which failed to gain the orders (they went abroad), loss of profit s leading to lower values for privatisation exercises, the loss of highly-developed skills, the higher pr ice paid than was necessary, and the purchase in at least one instance of a fuse which was useless as it was 'ineffective in practice and battle conditions'3. More generically and systematically, recall that Transparency International has found that corruption is most commonly found in the following areas of the civil service: • • • • • public procurement; revenue collection; government appointments; rezoning of land; and local government. In the view of Transparency International, the responsibility for maintaining standards and minimizing corruption within the public service falls fairly and squarely on the public administrator. Against all of this, the criminal law is a necessary weapon. But it can be blunted very easily. The President of the Court of Appeal in New South Wales has argued the criminal is attended with difficulties of proof and the political difficulty of forcing an institution (be it government or police force or whatever) to act against itself if something more than isolated malefaction is involved4. Moreover, TI suggests the criminal law is too blunt an instrument to be the only way to deal with corruption in the public service for three further reasons - because: • • • it is concerned only with minimum standards; it emphasizes enforcement rather than prevention; and, the burden of proof is on the government (in corruption cases usually only the officials involved know the facts). If properly conceived, regulations governing corruption in the public service must focus on conflicts of interest and be directed towards erecting a system designed to protect the public decision-making process. Rather than detecting and punishing the wrongdoer after the fact, such a system reduces the risk of corruption occurring in the first place. For the system to be effective, responsibility for avoiding corruption should not be a centralized task within one only area of the public administration, but a task which is an overall management function at all levels and in all departments within the public service. ENSURING FINANCIAL AND DECISION-MAKING ACCOUNTABILITY The public scrutiny and accountability of public officials is also vitally important. Institutionalized checks and balances and other meaningful accountability mechanisms reduce secrecy, monopoly and discretion. Public officials must be held accountable to the public and to the legislature for their performance and stewardship of public funds and assets. The currency of financial accountability is information, but Ministers and officials are unlikely to always agree with members of the legislature or interested citizens as to the quantity and quality of information that should be provided. As such, the Office of the Auditor-General stands at the pinnacle of the financial accountability pyramid. Money being the root of all evil, the Auditor-General is a fundamental part of the protection of the public purse. Equally critical are Freedom of Information, the office of the Ombudsman, Whistleblowers protection and independent prosecutions before honest, impartial and qualified Courts. All of these are worthless unless the press and media are free to report such matters and citizens are free to meet, to discuss, to organise and to campaign for an honest, just and corruption-free society. SOME CONCLUSIONS From this survey, I propose some interim conclusions about Australia: • • • • • • that while we have come a long way, it took a long time for our system of government and parliament to become relatively free and clean; while we now claim to have removed endemic corruption - corruption which is built in to the very system or culture of public life - corruption has not gone away; the presence of corruption in our own polity is an everpresent threat; vigilance and persistence are required to combat it; that it can take a long time for suspected or rumoured corruption to be officially investigated; it can be even harder to prove corruption to the standard of the criminal law. The President of the New South Wales Court of Appeal has argued that the elements of the general criminal law protections against misuse of official power are too difficult to prove; Enormous damage can be done in the meantime and cultures can be corrupted, so that the ritualistic cleansing, by a high profile prosecution to remove a single 'bad apple', is not enough. The would-be reformer of corruption can be at a loss as to where to begin. History is littered with postures at reform--with grandiose promises and the conspicuous inability to deliver. In some cases, the intentions are genuine: newly-elected leaders arrive determined to clean out the stables, but are quickly overwhelmed by the size of the problem facing them. Others simply posture, making speeches, signing laws--all in the absence of any expectation that meaningful change will follow. Time and again, optimistic electorates have returned governments pledged to confront corruption firmly and effectively. Governments have fallen over their inability to counter the phenomenon; others have been elected in the hope that they can do better. Yet, very few can point to enduring progress. Reform must also face a host of vested interests: those who have been bending the rules - whether to supplement meagre incomes or to pad well-filled foreign bank accounts - are potentially at risk in this process. Many are in positions in which they can derail reforms; some are so powerful, or so determined, that they may resort to violence. The potential dangers to reformers in such countries are real. The changes inherent in a comprehensive and effective overhaul of a country's integrity system may be considerable, and call for special political and managerial skills. To attempt a wholesale purge of the past is often to invite obstruction at best. It is important to define the most promising areas for reform, and focus on them. A second rule is that the emphasis should be as consumer-friendly as the circumstances allow to make the process less threatening. There will be those who, realizing that the rules have changed, will go along with reforms that prevent future corruption. Creating the Foundation: An Environment of Integrity in Public Life An independent judicial investigation (Royal Commission) into questionable dealings between the provincial government and business in Western Australia in 1992 compellingly described as "architectural principles" for Australian government5 a set of principles for leaders and civil servants (see also the Nolan Commission (U.K. 19956)). The two principles are popular participation in and popular election of government and the trust principle - the idea that all institutions, officials and agencies of government exist for the public, to serve the interests of the public. All government must be constructed with three goals in mind: • • • Government must be conducted openly Public officials and agencies must be accountable for their actions There must be integrity both in the processes of government and in the conduct expected of officials. The establishment and maintenance of integrity in public life and public service requires a number of elements, including: legislation, regulations and codes of conduct; a society whose religious, political and social values expect honesty from politicians and officials; professionalism among officials; a sense of elitism among senior civil servants; and, a political leadership which takes both public and private morality seriously. Together, these elements establish and foster a tradition of ethical public life and an ethical environment in which politicians and officials are generally assumed to be honest. Within such an environment it is also assumed that the laws and means of detection and investigation are sufficient to make it risky and costly to break the rules, accept bribes and become involved in fraud. GUARDING THE GUARDIANS--PERPETUAL VIGILANCE AND AN ANTICORRUPTION COMMISSION The example set by leaders and high-ranking public officials is crucial to the achievement and maintenance of an effective national integrity system. But who will guard the guardians? One element is a properly funded, independent corruption eradication commission with effective powers. Such a commission offers hope and encouragement to honest parliamentarians, Ministers and officials, so that those persons can grow stronger in support of honest government for the benefit of the nation and the people. In this way a self-sustaining circle of integrity can be built. However, a self-sustaining circle can be constructed based on integrity or on deceit. Every post-holder is potentially at risk - be it the head of government, a judge, an auditor or a junior official - although some are obviously more vulnerable than others, based on the value of the decisions they make and the processes they control. The challenge is to construct a transparent and accountable system, which has two primary objectives: the first is to prevent fraud from taking place, and the second to make the principal players believe that there is a realistic chance of fraud being detected. Monitoring corruption cannot be left only to public prosecutors and to the forces of law and order. Action cannot depend solely on detection and criminal prosecution. Rather, action must include a combination of interlocking arrangements. In part, this approach includes improving the transparency of relationships, and to the extent possible, preventing the development relationships which can lead to corruption. It includes transparency in the financial affairs of key players and the prospect of reviews being conducted by independent institutions which are likely to be outside any particular corruption network. Although corruption can never be completely monitored, it can be controlled through a combination of ethical codes, decisive legal prosecutions against offenders, organizational change, and institutional reform. INVOLVING CIVIL SOCIETY There is one last element. Where genuine attempts to combat corruption have been unsuccessful, there has generally been one missing ingredient--the involvement of civil society. The Times of India has observed that: 'People's acceptance of corruption as a fact of life and their general despondency need to be tackled first.'7 Many people in civil society have a fundamental interest in an effective integrity system, including the private sector, religious leaders, the press, the professions and, above all, the ordinary citizen who bears the brunt of corruption on a daily basis. That civil society is crucial in any successful anti-corruption strategy is clear. Some of the solutions lie within civil society itself--for example, the need to reverse public apathy or tolerance of corruption. But civil society is also part of the problem. The notion that state activities can take place in a vacuum simply does not stand up. It is often the general public that is paying the bribes. The point of interface between the private and the public sectors is also often the point at which grand corruption flourishes and the largest bribes are paid. Thus, any attempt to develop an anti-corruption strategy that fails to involve civil society is neglecting one of the most potentially useful and powerful tools available. Of course, in many countries where corruption is rife, civil society is weak, apathetic or only in the early stages of mobilization and organization. These are not reasons to neglect its role, however, as the very involvement of an emerging civil society can, of itself, provide strength and stimulus for further development of an anti-corruption strategy. 0oooooooo000oooooooo0 The task of achieving sustainable anti-corruption reforms will be a long and arduous one. That the stakes are high is beyond dispute. Yet just how much time we have to make a significant impact on the phenomenon is uncertain. On the one hand, it could be that the people in the most corrupt countries lose heart, lose faith in democratic practices and turn to authoritarianism, seemingly as a logical reaction to democracy's failure. There is, of course, no reason to suppose that a further round of autocracy will be any less disastrous than it has been in the past. On the other hand, too, the international community may start to dilute their commitment to the cause. Other issues may attract their attention and may seem to offer more immediate responses to their interventions. But one thing is clear. If we all--governments, civil society, the private sector and international organizations--do not grasp the opportunities we now have to confront corruption effectively, then the chances will pass. Corruption will steadily and inexorably undermine the new democracies and will continue to impact negatively on human rights, the environment and all aspects of globalisation. We are gathered here today to mark an important new institution in one country's battle against an evil which afflicts all countries, mine as much as anyone's. Our concern is with the insidious and deleterious affects of corruption, which distract, destroy and divert economic, social and moral development, not only in the society of the receivers, but in the society of the payers. The stakes, surely, could not be higher than they now are. We wish the Corruption Eradication Commission of Indonesia great success. © Peter Willis, 2001. Endnotes * Transparency International Australia is the affiliated National Chapter of Transparency International. Statements attributed to Transparency International as being its views in this paper are drawn from TI Source Book 2000 - Confronting Corruption: the Elements of a National Integrity System , Pope, J. (ed) 4th ed 2000, Berlin, Transparency International, available at www.transparency.org. Otherwise, the views expressed are those of the author. 1 High Court of Australia [Justice Higgins] in The King v Boston (1923) 33 CLR 386, 410. 2 Federal Court of Australia [Justices Gallop, Wilcox and Burchett] in Dau v Emanuele (1995) 60 FCR 270 at 288. 3 'MoD arms chief's greed cost £130 m,' The Observer (UK), 16 October 1994. 4 Justice Mahoney. 1996, 'The Criminal Liability of Public Officers for the Exercise of Public Power', The Judicial Review, vol. 3, p. 25. 5 Royal Commission into Commercial Activities of Government and Other Matters Part II 1992, para 1.2.5 - 8. 6 The Nolan Commission (U.K. 1995) suggested that there are seven relevant principles applying to all aspects of public life: 1.Selflessness: Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest. They should not do so in order to gain financial or other material benefits for themselves, their family, or their friends; 2. Integrity: Holders of public office should not place themselves under any financial or other obligation to outside individuals or organizations that might influence them in the performance of their official duties; 3. Objectivity: In carrying out public business, including making public appointments, awarding contracts, or recommending individuals for rewards and benefits, holders of public office should make choices on merit; 4. Accountability: Holders of public office are accountable for their decisions and actions to the public and must submit themselves to whatever scrutiny is appropriate to their office; 5. Openness: Holders of public office should be as open as possible about all the decisions and actions that they take. They should give reasons for their decisions and restrict information only when the wider public interest clearly demands; 6. Honesty: Holders of public office have a duty to declare any private interests relating to their public duties and to take steps to resolve any conflicts arising in a way that protects the public interest; 7. Leadership: Holders of public office should promote and support these principles by leadership and example. 7 Editorial of 10 May 1964, p.6, quoted in Bayley D., ' The Effects of Corruption in a Developing Nation,' The Western Political Quarterly p. 723.