MEMBERS’ CONFLICTS OF INTERESTS IN A SMALL JURISDICTION
BIAS AND CONFLICT: A MATTER OF INTEREST TO US ALL Members’ conflicts of interests in a small jurisdiction
Deputy Dawn Tindall, a solicitor
by profession, was elected to the Guernsey Parliament as a People’s Deputy in April 2016. She is the VicePresident of both the Development and Planning Authority and Transport Licensing Authority and also the Legislation Review Panel. Dawn has also taken a keen interest in the government of local parishes, being a member of the Douzaine Liaison Group, and that of fellow islands, Alderney and Sark.
In this year’s Issue Two of The Parliamentarian, we read about the new strategic direction for CPA Small Branches proposed by Hon. Angelo Farrugia, MP, the recently elected Chairperson of the CPA Small Branches. He talked about reviewing common difficulties and strengths and sharing experiences. As a newly elected Parliamentarian of the small branch of Guernsey, I was keen to take part in such a review and, through this article, debate one area affecting us all – the management of conflicts of interest in a small jurisdiction. There are many competing ethical issues facing us today some of which have come to the fore recently due to the rise in a populist style of politics. Such areas include the differing views over how to balance transparency and confidentiality; to foster confidence in elected leaders through access to information yet maintain an ability to have a safe space in Committee to air views. A further dilemma can also be seen between an unlimited freedom of speech and the need to protect against internet or face-to-face abuse. However, the topic of this article is an issue we all face in the political arena; the conflicts between our own interests and that of our office. A conflict of interest can be defined as “a situation that has the potential to undermine the impartiality of a person because of the possibility of a clash between the person’s selfinterest and professional interest or public interest.”1
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In politics we should always be aware of the possibility that, if we have a personal interest, it could be perceived to affect the way in which we act. That interest may not influence the decisions we make but the mere chance it has affected us, or even the perception of that chance, could lead to our impartiality being questioned. However, being a Parliamentarian in a small jurisdiction, the likelihood of having a personal interest in a matter increases as does the potential for conflict. We may well be closely involved in aspects on which we will have to make difficult decisions and, due to the proximity of the electorate, it is quite possible they will consider that we will benefit from such decisions. The question is how to ensure that such conflicts are managed both to enhance decision making and also to increase the faith of the electorate in the ethical outcome of those decisions. Most jurisdictions have Codes of Conduct which set out how to deal with conflicts but also identify what is a personal interest which could give rise to the conflict in the first place. It is as important for politicians to identify what is and what is not a personal interest as much as to understand the basis for the concern. Whilst not a Parliamentarian in a small state, the former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi once said about his alleged conflict of interest as both Prime Minister and as one of Italy’s biggest tycoons with major
media holdings: “if I, taking care of everyone’s interests, also take care of my own, you can’t talk about a conflict of interest.” By looking after his own interests through his position of power, he did not seem to see how this could be to anyone’s detriment let alone be unethical. Whilst Mr Berlusconi may not have understood the concepts involved, avoiding conflicts such as these are not, of course, a thing of the past for prominent politicians. However, living on a small island, I think we are more aware of the need to be seen to be impartial having seen the effect up close when conflicts arise. When researching this article, I read a very interesting paper by Jack Corbett about politics
“A conflict of interest can be defined as ‘a situation that has the potential to undermine the impartiality of a person because of the possibility of a clash between the person’s self-interest and professional interest or public interest’.”