ETHICS AND THE PEACE-BUILDING COMMONWEALTH
ETHICS AND THE PEACE-BUILDING COMMONWEALTH
Hon. Juan Watterson, SHK
is the Speaker of the House of Keys and Member for Rushen, Isle of Man. Formerly a Chartered Accountant with KPMG, he has held a number of government posts since first being elected in 2006 including Minister of Home Affairs and he is currently also the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
All politics, parliamentary and government practice must rest on a strong ethical base. Our electorates must have confidence that as elected politicians we will represent our constituents and our nations in accordance with ethical principles, which will be upheld by our parliamentary institutions. This confidence will engender a greater trust between politician and citizen. This trust provides stability, which is directly linked to economic growth. Where there is a stability borne out of trust, we reduce the likelihood for internal conflict. Where trust in the ethics of politicians is missing, populist, fascist or dictatorial tendencies can easily grow. Peace-building, which is the 2017 Commonwealth theme, is the elimination of harassment, bullying, intolerance and oppression as much as overt conflict. These are ideals that all Parliamentarians involved in the CPA will recognise. The preamble to our constitution states that we are: Commonwealth Parliamentarians who, irrespective of gender, race, religion or culture, being united by community of interest, respect for the rule of law and individual rights and freedoms, and by pursuit of the positive ideals of parliamentary democracy, have established the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Religion, cultural norms and values that shape ethics are different across the world. So
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it would be wrong to codify in detail a single way forward. What is important though is a common understanding between the public, press and politicians as to good ethical conduct. Ethics does not happen in a vacuum, it happens in the real world. It has the undesirable ability to creep up and surprise people. Most of us would say that ‘we know it when we see it’. However, we would also acknowledge that the creation of a framework which expounds a common understanding is also very useful. For some nations these are contained in the constitution, and are high level principles. Sometimes, individual pieces of legislation are enacted, either principles or rules-based, to deal with specific matters such as antimoney laundering or corruption. In addition, many parliaments have also adopted ethical codes to bind Members and have developed mechanisms to call Members to account for actions which are not illegal, but do not comply with the declared ethical standards of parliament. Avid readers of The Parliamentarian, especially those who attended the excellent 2014 Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference (CPC) in Cameroon will be aware of the work of the CPA Headquarters Secretariat in collaboration with Dr Ken Coghill and Monash University in Australia. Dr Coghill, himself a former Parliamentarian, has done much to promote
ethical codes of conduct in parliament and review the similarities and differences of approaches between CPA member parliaments. The CPA’s Recommended Benchmarks for Codes of Conduct for Members of Parliament are available on the CPA website.1 The Isle of Man experience The Isle of Man is a selfgoverning crown dependency and is proud to be the world’s oldest continuous Parliament, Tynwald.2 Those who have visited the Isle of Man will have found a small, proud Island nation which is proud of its history and traditions, yet embraces new ideas, change and technology. Tynwald is comprised of two Houses, the popularly elected House of Keys and the Legislative Council, elected by the Keys through an electoral college. The two branches sit separately for legislative purposes but sit together as the High Court of Tynwald on matters of policy, finance and secondary legislation. The overwhelming majority of Members of both branches of the legislature are elected and sit as independents, thus there is no role of whip in dealing with matters of discipline and conduct. The Chief Minister has the unfettered power to ‘hire and fire’ Members of the Government, but that is no substitute for proper parliamentary process. Tynwald has long had a Members’ Standards and Interests