고위 공직의 윤리

Ethics for Senior Public Officials

This study searches for key elements of the ethics for senior public officials, and explores the range of alternative options for enhancing their ethical behavior. It is based on the alleged notion that senior public officials play a key role in enhancing, as well as undermining, public service ethics and public confidence in the government. Three ethical components are examined that are prerequisite to ethical leadership: policy ethics, loyalty, and appearance. Various measures are then recommended that overcome the major obstacles to effective institutionalization of conflict of interest regulation, post-employment restrictions, and financial disclosure. Among major recommendations are: that the interest to which conflict of interest rules apply be clearly defined; that remedies for conflict of interest, such as recusal and divestiture-blind trust, be incorporated into the ethics laws; that different levels of restrictions be used to deal with the potential problems resulted from post-employment, reflecting upon the nature of particular matters at stake and the position rank of the former officials; that a financial disclosure report be public with no proviso; that members of household covered by the financial disclosure provision include the official`s spouse, parents, and children regardless of where they are domiciled and whether the children are married or not; and that penalties for those guilty of violations be strengthened so that the ethics regulation can have a psychological deterrent effect on the part of potential violators. This study concludes with the caveat that senior public officials involved in making and revising the ethics laws should be aware of their public responsibilities and maintain high ethical standards beyond their self interest.