Columns

April, wrote the poet T.S. Eliot in “The Wasteland”, is the cruellest month.
Early this month a leading German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung dropped a bombshell by publishing the first reports on what has come to be known as the “Panama Papers”. These reports and subsequent writings in media in the US, UK and elsewhere exposed the financial shenanigans of the rich and the powerful some of whom have stashed away ill-gotten monies in secretive off-shore tax havens.

Those whose names have emerged so far include over 140 politicians among them 12 national leaders from Europe, the Gulf and Asia. At least one of them, the prime minister of Iceland, has already fallen on his sword while the prime minister of Ukraine has quit over the country’s president being named in the scandal.

This might well be just the tip of the iceberg as scores of investigative journalists involved in this astounding expose’ pore over 11.5 million files from the database of an off-shore law firm and other fraud busters from the international community conduct their own inquiries to out others whose names may well be buried in the mountain of documents.

Up to this writing no names of Sri Lankan politicians have appeared in the Panama papers. That of course does not mean no one is involved. Our own websites and social media sniffing blood will continue to dig for information through multiple sources.
This is not to say that those who salt away their wealth in off shore tax regimes are necessarily guilty of offences. Some do it to avoid paying tax at home. Others to evade taxes and still others use them to hide national assets they have plundered or bribes, commissions and other financial benefits they have gained through their official status or by influence peddling.

If the Panama Papers — far wider in its impact and global reach than the 1971 “Pentagon Papers” published in the New York Times that rocked the US administration — are proving to be the cruellest month for those named and still others who fear exposure, it is also bound to be a bad month for Sri Lanka’s lawmakers.

Just a few days after the Panama Papers made the world sit up in anger, Speaker Karu Jayasuriya circulated among Sri Lanka’s parliamentarians a draft Code of Conduct. That code set out standards of behavior and responsibilities that it is hoped would preserve the dignity of parliament and revive public faith in the manner in which MPs perform their public duties as elected representatives.

The fact that Speaker Jayasuriya’s draft code of conduct came hard on the heels of the Panama Papers exposure of the misconduct of politicians across the globe including national leaders is purely coincidental and in no way was the former prompted by the latter.

Yet to a public increasingly cynical about the conduct, or rather misconduct, of some of our legislators over the years, their abuse and misuse of power, suspected corruption, use of national assets for personal gain and use of position to fatten their kith and kin, the release of the code of conduct is timely when world attention is focussed on the misdeeds of politicians.

It is the hope of the code makers that those who have acted like easy riders during their days in parliament might think twice before behaving with the same impunity they have shown, now that a code is to be brought to control their conduct.
But it could very well be a vain hope for ultimately it is the same set of lawmakers who have to approve the code that would circumscribe the ways in which they have acted all this time.

Who could really assure the public that the code, parts of which I have read and believe have loopholes, will not be further diluted under discussion to allow a herd of unlicensed baby elephants to creep through. It will be recalled that a Code of Conduct for our MPs was a pledge held out prior to the presidential election in January 2015 and was included in the 100-Day Programme but failed to make it on time.

Although I have not been privy to the full draft code and have only read what has entered the public domain, it seems to me that there is some confusion in both the mainstream and social media about the code itself.Some have called it a code of ethics while others have referred to it as a code of conduct. Still others appear to think that the terms are interchangeable. It might be prudent to clear this confusion in terminology at the start so that one has a clearer view of what is intended.

More than a decade ago the World Bank Institute produced a series of working papers on contemporary issues in parliamentary development. One of these was titled “Legislative Ethics and Codes of Conduct.”

Among the matters the paper discussed was the difference between a Code of Ethics and a Code of Conduct though both are intended to increasing public trust in elected representatives because of a growing public perception that their representatives lacked responsiveness, were not accountable and were guilty of various forms of misconduct including involvement in corruption scandals.

That paper points out that an ethics code tend to be fairly general documents, set out broad principles of behaviour but do not define appropriate or inappropriate behaviour. On the other hand codes of conduct usually contain very specific provisions stipulating clear sanctions for those found to have violated provisions of the code. What we intend to have is a code of conduct based on a set of principles.

The proposed code does raise broader issues as well as some relating to the code itself. Is it enough to have a code of conduct that only applies to ministers and MPs? While it is true that they are the lawmakers, it seems to let off the hook other elected representatives such as provincial councillors and members of pradeshiya sabhas.

The public is surely aware of the numerous instances where provincial councillors and members of pradeshiya sabhas have been involved in assaulting, humiliating, threatening and intimidating members of the public or public servants performing their duties. Principals of schools and teachers have been humiliated or threatened and other public officials physically attacked.
It is not that MPs have not been guilty of such abhorrent behaviour and not violated the law in numerous instances. But most news reports of such obnoxious conduct have related to the second and third tier of elected representatives.

These politicians who in their early political careers resort to thuggery and boorish behaviour are nominated by their respective parties to contest for parliamentary elections and end up making our country’s laws.
If the overall intention is to rebuild public trust in their elected representatives and stop debasing the democracy process by the crude, brutish and corrupt conduct of those who pretend to serve the public interest, then Provincial Councils Minister Faizer Musthapha should get a move on and produce a more rigorous code of conduct for the so-called people’s representatives in institutions lower down.

In one of the provisions of the code mentioned in this newspaper Political Column last Sunday it is stated that “Members of Parliament shall disclose sufficient information regarding their business relationships and financial interests including information about close family members.”

Why only “sufficient information”? Who is to define what is sufficient? Is it to be left to each individual MP to decide what is sufficient? Why not all information relating to their business and financial interests and those of their family members which will then not require interpretation by each MP?

Any provision is that any complaint of impropriety or fraud must be submitted through an MP. This will create several problems which lack of space does not allow one to explore further. Suffice it to say that the complaint, if it overcomes the initial hurdle, will be dealt internally and not by an independent person of integrity as happens in the British parliament which has a Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. The Commissioner will investigate any allegation presented by a public individual if is sufficient cause to do so. The Commissioner will deal with any violations and if they are serious refer her findings to the Committee on Standards as happened quite recently with regard to John Rifkind and Jack Straw..

Self-regulatory codes of conduct bring to mind the Greek myth about Hercules and the Augean stables. King Augeas had thousands of heads of cattle and other animals in stables that had not been cleaned for 30 years.
Fortunately Hercules, an outsider, was hired to do the job. Naturally the cattle could not be expected to clean up their own stables. If they could have they would have, surely.