Official Misconduct Research Articles

The Australian insolvency regime revisited: a precis of the next leap forward

Australian corporate insolvency laws contained within Chapter 5 of the Corporations Act are currently being reviewed with respect to four principal areas identified by Australian Government Treasury. The four themes of review include employee ‘benefit’ enhancements; seeking to deter misconduct of company officers; rules around insolvency practitioner disclosure with respect to their remuneration and related independence issues; and some minor proposed changes to the voluntary administration procedure, widely regarded as requiring only minor adjustment. At this time, the draft legislation is not available for general release and is being discussed within the Australian Government appointed Insolvency Law Advisory Group. The next steps are public comment for review of draft legislation and then operation of the legislative change. These are expected to occur in 2007. This paper seeks to outline the likely issues associated with the expected reforms of the Australian insolvency regime.

On official corruption in the Yuan dynasty

The vicious cycle of official corruption got worse unprecedentedly in the Yuan dynasty (ca.1279–1368). Corrupt officials at all levels from the local to the central governments were “extremely shameless and greedy.” Even many court ministers got involved in the vicious cycle of corruption. The top officialdom was polluted and degenerated badly because the Mongolian nobles made their “Sauqat” (taking gifts) tradition and the Semu, both official and merchant groups, took bribes as a way to amass wealth. Although the Mongol Yuan rulers did make a set of anti-corruption policies such as detailed rules of censorship and inspection relating to corruption crimes, these didn’t work well. Of all the reasons of the Yuan official corruption, the old Mongolian steppe traditions play the most important role, which formed the context for the low salary, improper selection and poor quality of the officials and of bending the law wrongly to pardon official misconduct

Police Solidarity and Tolerance for Police Misbehavior, Revisited

A small scale replication of Lester and Brink's (1985) study of police misbehavior was recently conducted with a sample of 125 police officers from Southern California. The findings of this study were diametrically opposed to those of Lester and Brink's findings. This study indicates that there does not appear to be a relationship between peer association while off duty and a proclivity for official misconduct. Several reasons are mentioned for possible explanation of the different findings.

The Geography of Law Enforcement Malpractice: National Patterns of Official Misconduct in the United States, 1989–1999

One of the darkest aspects of U.S. history and culture is encapsulated in crime perpetrated by law enforcement officials. In fact, police abuse of power has long been a footnote in analyses of governments' monopoly on legitimated violence. The history of modern policing itself indicates long-standing concern with excessive, sometimes brutal, control over citizens by law enforcement agents. Such concerns have been articulated variously over time by the public, academics, the press, and within law enforcement ranks. Much of this concern turns on perception, for police malfeasance is notoriously shrouded behind a “blue wall,” well-meaning law enforcement officials are genuinely interested in public perceptions of their services, and news of police malpractice flares selectively and variously across time.

The Intensification of Corruption in China

Although most analysts agree that corruption has worsened since the advent of reform, this article argues that whereas the first stages of reform witnessed a quantitative increase in corruption, during the 1990s corruption underwent a qualitative change as high-level, high-stakes corruption increased more rapidly than other forms of official malfeasance. Drawing together data from the Party discipline inspection system, the state supervisory system and the judicial procuratorial system, the article examines in detail trends in forms of official misconduct broadly defined and corruption more narrowly defined as the use of public authority for private gain, charting not only overall trends in malfeasance and corruption but also trends in the number of “major cases,” cases involving senior cadres, and the amounts of corrupt monies. Its finding that corruption has intensified raises important questions about the efficacy of enforcement, the link between the deepening of reform and the intensification of corruption, and the economic consequences of intensification.

Suing the Local State: Administrative Litigation in Rural China

The promulgation of the Administrative Litigation Law (ALL) in 1989 was hailed in China a milestone of democratic and legal construction.1 Hopeful observers anticipated that the law, by empowering citizens to dispute unlawful administrative acts, would curb official misconduct. However, more than a decade after the ALL came into force, the best evidence suggests that its deterrent effect has been modest. While the number of cases has grown (see Table 1 at the end of the paper) and about two-fifths of these reportedly result in some form of relief,2 the law's implementation has been hounded by interference and feigned compliance.3 To this day, the law is widely regarded a frail weapon that has not greatly reduced administrative arbitrariness.4 The ALL's effect has been especially problematic in the countryside, where many local officials continue to mistreat villagers in egregiously illegal ways. Litigating is expensive, getting a case accepted is difficult, and long delays are common. Even when rural complainants manage to win a suit, they often face retaliation or uncertain enforcement. Many villagers have understandably concluded that it is futile or even dangerous to contest unfair administrative decisions or unjust sanctions.5 In a 1999-2001 survey in Fujian, Jiangsu and Jiangxi, for instance, only 9 per cent of 1,368 respondents said they would consider filing an administrative lawsuit if they discovered that their township government had made a decision contrary to central policies and regulations.6 Still, despite a widespread belief that suing the powerful is like throwing an egg against a stone,7 hundreds of thousands of rural people have used the ALL to challenge acts by county and township governments, Public Security Bureaus, industrial and commercial departments, cultural, environmental and public hygiene agencies and Civil Affairs Bureaus. Charges commonly involve the grievances of individual villagers (such detention, land confiscation or home demolition), well decisions that affect many people (such increasing fees, closing village clinics, selling fake seed or selling off village land). While many suits are filed by individuals, others are organized efforts that involve hundreds, thousands, or even ten thousand plaintiffs.8 These suits, particularly collective ones, are often preceded, accompanied or followed by non-judicial mass action, such joint letter-writing, sending delegations to government compounds or media outlets, and group appeals to Party authorities or People's Congresses.9 That some villagers find the ALL to be a useful if imperfect tool to combat official malfeasance suggests that state-society relations in rural China can be fruitfully explored by examining the dynamics of administrative litigation. The cases recounted below cannot be said to be representative, but are illustrative of the problems that many plaintiffs encounter. They were chosen mainly to shed light on questions such as: what tactics do litigants and their targets employ both in and out of court? How have villagers fared in their struggles with local officials? What can the emerging set of practices surrounding the ALL tell us about the relationship between law and politics in contemporary China? Dynamics of Administrative Litigation: Gaining Access to Court Although there is evidence that Chinese officials have become somewhat more accepting of being sued,10 local officials generally do not welcome legal challenges, and often do everything possible to preempt, derail or undermine administrative litigation. They sometimes even block the local populace's access to official documents and regulations. When a county government, for instance, began distributing some pamphlets and books, township leaders ordered that no materials related to legal education be made available because as soon ordinary people learn anything about the law then they become impossible to govern. …

Law's Empire: The Legal Construction of 'America' in the 'District of China'

In 1906 the U.S. Congress passed An Act Creating a United States Court for China and prescribing the jurisdiction thereof. The new court, equivalent to a federal district court, assumed civil and criminal jurisdiction over American citizens within the District of China which in turn was coincident with the Empire of China. Appeals from the court were taken to the Ninth Judicial Circuit in San Francisco, with further appeals to the United States Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. Expanding its original mandate, the court eventually construed its jurisdiction to include not only American citizens in the District of China but also American subjects from the Philippines and Guam, and in some cases American citizens who had never even been to China. The law applied by the court consisted of an extraordinary mix of colonial common law as it existed prior to American independence, general congressional acts, the municipal code of the District of Columbia, and the code of the territory of Alaska (parts of which continued being applied in China even after they were repealed in Alaska), to mention only the main sources of the court's jurisprudence. The court had only one judge, and when he was away (either riding circuit in the cities of Hankow, Tientsin, or Canton, or being investigated for official misconduct in Washington), prisoners sometimes had to wait for months for a trial. Indeed, virtually the only federal law that did not apply in the District of China was the United States Constitution: there was no right to a jury trial nor to constitutional due process, for example. This may all sound rather like a chapter from Alice in Wonderland - the kind of befuddled jurisprudence one might expect to emerge from the courtroom of the Queen of Hearts, not from a court of the United States. Yet the above description is in fact a brief summary of the jurisprudence of the American extraterritorial court in Shanghai, known simply and immodestly as the United States Court for China. It operated for several decades, and was not abolished until 1943. Even among its contemporaries, the court was not well known; from time to time, Congress itself forgot about its own creation. Those who became aware of the court's existence were as startled and intrigued as today's observers. A central goal of this Article is to rescue the U.S. Court for China from such oblivion. Although the court was likely the strangest federal tribunal ever constituted by Congress, it remains little known among legal scholars and China specialists alike, both in the United States as well as in China, and its jurisprudential and political significance remain almost entirely unexplored. In addition to its intrinsic historical significance, the court's functioning provides also a window into understanding the interaction between Chinese law and other legal systems. In the end, the story of the U.S. Court for China is part of the much larger, still on-going story of the introduction of Western international law into China. The ultimate ground for the court's stunning jurisdiction lay in the claim that China did not qualify for full membership in the Family of Nations, or Euro-American international society consisting of civilized states identified with their national legal systems.

Starr: a reassessment

How is Kenneth Starr's extraordinary term as independent counsel to be understood? Was he a partisan warrior out to get the Clintons, or a saviour of the Republic? An unstoppable menace, an unethical lawyer, or a sex-obsessed Puritan striving to enforce a right-wing social morality? This volume is designed to offer an evaluation and critique of Starr's tenure as independent counsel. Relying on lengthy, revealing interviews with Starr and many other players in Clinton-era Washington, Washington Post journalist Benjamin Wittes arrives at an understanding of Starr and the part he played in one of American history's most enthralling public sagas. Wittes offers a portrait of a decent man who fundamentally misconstrued his function under the independent counsel law. Starr took his task to be ferreting out and reporting the truth about official misconduct, a well-intentioned but nevertheless misguided distortion of the law, Wittes argues. At key moments throughout Starr's probe - from the decision to reinvestigate the death of Vincent Foster, to the repeated prosecutions of Susan McDougal and Webster Hubbell to the failure to secure Monica Lewinsky's testimony quickly - the prosecutor avoided the most sensible prosecutorial course, fearing that it would compromise the larger search for truth. This approach not only delayed investigations enormously, but it gave Starr the appearance of partisan zealotry and an almost maniacal determination to prosecute the president. Wittes provides in this account of Starr's term a reinterpretation of the man, his performance, and the controversial events that surrounded the impeachment of President Clinton.

Sinews of rule: the politics of officeholding in fifteenth‐century Venetian Crete

Crete, a colony of Venice from 1204 to 1669, presented administrative challenges to the Venetian regime, one of the most important being the distribution of offices in the island's government. Venetian patricians, Veneto‐Cretan settlers, and local residents all had a stake in the politics of officeholding, and the Venetian Signoria had to mediate between the interests of officials eager to reap the rewards of office and complaints of the islanders quick to defend local privilege, in order to create a stable colonial administration. To maintain this balance, Venice relied on a flexible system of government which used Cretan embassies to the Senate, state inspectors' investigations and prosecutions for official misconduct, individual petitions for favours, or gratie, and judicial appeals as avenues for necessary change in the island's administration. These complaints and prosecutions, ambassadors' requests, and the Senate's response to them reveal a pattern in the administration of this territory: in most matters, the Venetian administration was responsive to requests from its subjects and displayed a measure of flexibility, balancing its own interests with those expressed by the islanders. The exception to this policy was the eligibility and distribution of offices in the highest levels of the administration on Crete, which the Venetian Signoria kept under its own control despite pressures for greater local involvement from the local population.

The Scope Of 'High Crimes And Misdemeanors' After the Impeachment of President Clinton

Constitutional theorists have begun focusing a great deal of attention on constitutionalism outside the judiciary. As Professor Neal Katyal points out in his insightful paper, the impeachment and trial of President Clinton provide an outstanding opportunity reflect upon the practice of constitutionalism outside the courts. During these episodes, the House of Representatives and the Senate confronted numerous constitutional questions, but rarely resolved them on the basis of an identifiable construction of the Constitution's meaning. There is, however, at least one important question of constitutional interpretation that the House of Representatives must be understood have resolved: the scope of impeachable offenses. The constitutional category of impeachable offenses comprises Treason, Bribery or Crimes and Misdemeanors. The concluding phrase, other Crimes and Misdemeanors, is indefinite. While the matter was pending in the House of Representatives, the phrase's meaning became the subject of frequent discussion and controversy. There is broad agreement among scholars, Members of Congress, and commentators that a necessary element of crime and misdemeanor is great injury directly the constitutional system of government. Controversy erupted over whether high Crimes and Misdemeanors includes an additional necessary element of an impeachable offense. The argument, based on a variety of sources, claims that the scope of impeachable offenses is further limited official misconduct. Thus, impeachment is available only for serious public harm caused by a civil officer acting in an official capacity. Unofficial or private misconduct, it was argued, is beyond the scope of the impeachment This argument was most prominently advanced by the 443 law professors who signed a letter addressed then-Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. The professors contended that the House should not impeach President Clinton, basing their argument primarily on the grounds that a necessary element of a crime and misdemeanor is the grossly derelict exercise of official power. The House, by necessary implication, rejected that construction when it adopted the article of impeachment charging that President Clinton committed perjury before the grand jury, a charge that did not involve official conduct. The Senate's acquittal casts some doubt on the House's judgment. Because the Senate deliberated in closed session, we do not know the actual basis of its action. It may have acquitted because unofficial misconduct cannot be a crime or misdemeanor, or because the President's actions did not cause sufficiently grave harm warrant impeachment, or because the charges were not proven. It is my contention that the House's construction is proper, notwithstanding the view of the law professors or the indeterminacy of the Senate's action. I agree with Professor Michael Gerhardt that the classic case for impeachment involves official misconduct, and it is not surprising that most impeachments have been predicated upon misconduct involving the exercise of official Even though President Clinton's misconduct was not a proper basis for impeachment or conviction, his case demonstrates that it would be terribly unwise understand official misconduct be a necessary element of a crime or misdemeanor. As Professor Bloch describes the broad agreement of the scholars who testified before the House Subcommittee on the Constitution, to be impeachable, the actions of the President must seriously undermine the government and compromise his ability continue governing. Yet, it is impossible codify all conduct that might be so harmful. Conduct that is just as harmful the public as treason or bribery, for example, would evade impeachability if that conduct failed meet the technical, formal definitions of the codified offenses. In the words of Justice Joseph Story, any attempt define [all impeachable] offenses . . . would probably tend more injustice and inconvenience than it would correct; and perhaps would render the power at once inefficient and unwieldy. This concern about the ineffectiveness of formalism tends support leaving the scope of impeachable offenses open-ended. There is, however, a competing concern: According impeachable offenses a completely undefined scope raises the threat that the President will be forced serve at the will of Congress. The Constitution's structure plainly contemplates an independent, coequal executive. The question ultimately comes down whether this concern for the President's independence supports the argument that the scope of impeachable offenses does not include private or unofficial misconduct, but rather is limited abuses of official I begin by demonstrating that the law professors' position cannot claim substantial support from the Constitution's text, history, or structure, or from practice under the Constitution. I then argue that the impeachment of President Clinton demonstrates that the best understanding of high crimes and misdemeanors is that it is not limited official misconduct.

Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment

Historical sources indicate that the concept of Amendment is only a modern judicial invention, not the intended meaning of the text. Common-law sources show there was no broad standard in framing-era search and arrest law. In addition, historical sources show that the Framers were concerned almost exclusively with searches of houses general writs or warrants. Although the Framers abhorred the exercise of discretionary authority by ordinary officers, they were not threatened by warrantless intrusions because the ex officio authority of peace officers was very limited, especially when a house was involved. Thus, because the Framers perceived that warrant authority was the potent form of arrest and search authority, and because they were primarily concerned with the protection of the house and the sphere of domestic privacy associated with the house, they believed that prohibiting legislative authorization of general warrants would suffice to preserve the right to be secure. Moreover, in framing-era law, unlawful conduct by officers was regarded only as a private trespass, not as a form of government illegality. Thus the Framers had no basis for addressing the conduct of warrantless officers in a constitutional provision (and also had no basis for considering exclusion as a consequence of an unlawful search). The reference to searches and seizures in the text did not refer to a relativistic standard; rather that phrasing reflected Coke's earlier use of against reason as a label for a violation of a basic legal principle. James Otis invoked Coke's against reason during the Writs of Assistance Case and his protege John Adams (who recorded Otis's speech) introduced unreasonable into the lexicon of American search and seizure texts when he authored the 1780 Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Modern reasonableness doctrine is best understood as a judicial adjustment to the post-framing conferral of discretionary arrest and search authority on peace officers, a development which created a novel threat to the security of person and house. The 1914 decision in Weeks v. United States drew upon the late nineteenth century reconception of officer misconduct under color of office as a form of government illegality to extend the Fourth Amendment to warrantless officers. It also constitutionalized the common-law warrant requirement for house searches. The 1925 decision in Carroll v. United States changed direction, however, and facilitated enforcement of Prohibition by reinterpreting unreasonable as a relativistic standard for warrantless searches. Thus, the history of the Fourth Amendment is one of drastic doctrinal and contextual change. The authentic meaning cannot be recovered from the words of the text alone; rather, the intended meaning of the words can only be ascertained by examing the doctrinal and institutional context that shaped the Framers' concern. The differences between the historical and modern contexts are so pronounced that the original meaning cannot provide answers to modern issues. The value of recovering the authentic original meaning lies largely in the larger perspective it provides: we now accord the ordinary officer much more authority than the Framers either intended or expected.

Responding to Official Misconduct: Where Should Responsibility Lie?

Responding to Official Misconduct: Where Should Responsibility Lie?

Recovering the Original Fourth Amendment

Historical sources indicate that the concept of Amendment is only a modern judicial invention, not the intended meaning of the text. Common-law sources show there was no broad standard in framing-era search and arrest law. In addition, historical sources show that the Framers were concerned almost exclusively with searches of houses general writs or warrants. Although the Framers abhorred the exercise of discretionary authority by ordinary officers, they were not threatened by warrantless intrusions because the ex officio authority of peace officers was very limited, especially when a house was involved. Thus, because the Framers perceived that warrant authority was the potent form of arrest and search authority, and because they were primarily concerned with the protection of the house and the sphere of domestic privacy associated with the house, they believed that prohibiting legislative authorization of general warrants would suffice to preserve the right to be secure. Moreover, in framing-era law, unlawful conduct by officers was regarded only as a private trespass, not as a form of government illegality. Thus the Framers had no basis for addressing the conduct of warrantless officers in a constitutional provision (and also had no basis for considering exclusion as a consequence of an unlawful search). The reference to searches and seizures in the text did not refer to a relativistic standard; rather that phrasing reflected Coke's earlier use of against reason as a label for a violation of a basic legal principle. James Otis invoked Coke's against reason during the Writs of Assistance Case and his protege John Adams (who recorded Otis's speech) introduced unreasonable into the lexicon of American search and seizure texts when he authored the 1780 Massachusetts Declaration of Rights. Modern reasonableness doctrine is best understood as a judicial adjustment to the post-framing conferral of discretionary arrest and search authority on peace officers, a development which created a novel threat to the security of person and house. The 1914 decision in Weeks v. United States drew upon the late nineteenth century reconception of officer misconduct under color of office as a form of government illegality to extend the Fourth Amendment to warrantless officers. It also constitutionalized the common-law warrant requirement for house searches. The 1925 decision in Carroll v. United States changed direction, however, and facilitated enforcement of Prohibition by reinterpreting unreasonable as a relativistic standard for warrantless searches. Thus, the history of the Fourth Amendment is one of drastic doctrinal and contextual change. The authentic meaning cannot be recovered from the words of the text alone; rather, the intended meaning of the words can only be ascertained by examing the doctrinal and institutional context that shaped the Framers' concern. The differences between the historical and modern contexts are so pronounced that the original meaning cannot provide answers to modern issues. The value of recovering the authentic original meaning lies largely in the larger perspective it provides: we now accord the ordinary officer much more authority than the Framers either intended or expected.

Blackmail as a career choice: A liberal assessment

Walter Block sets out a respectable libertarian critique of laws that criminalize blackmail. Although some may take offense at the behavior of those who earn or supplement their livelihoods in this despicable way, Block endorses the libertarian precept that would restrict the criminal sanction only to cases in which miscreants employ or threaten to employ force, fraud, or theft. Absent some element of this triad, the blackmailer's misdeeds should attract the attention of the law--the civil law, not the criminal law--only when one of the parties complains that the voluntary agreement between the two--the blackmail contract--has been breached. It is the purpose of this paper to focus attention on the nature of that peculiar agreement and to argue that it is, in one critically important way, unworthy of the respect that Block wants us and our judiciary to accord to it. The paradox of blackmail is familiar, emerging from two apparently uncontroversial premises. The first is that what the blackmailer threatens to do, characteristically, is merely to reveal or publicize what is true of, albeit highly damaging to, another. Even though this may be harmful, it is ordinarily not a criminal offense and journalistic muckrakers often prosper from the marketing of such stories. Likening the blackmailer's reputation-shattering disclosures to gossip, Block is at pains to show that force, fraud, and theft need not be involved and I shall not challenge him on that point. Indeed, it should be noted that there are cases in which such disclosure is admirable, as when public-spirited citizens identify wanted felons to the authorities or when whistleblowers alert the public to corporate and official misconduct. Now although it is no criminal offense to pass along such information, neither is it an offense to sit on it. Thus the second premise: that it is not generally a criminal offense to ask to be paid for a promise to forbear from doing what one is at liberty to do or not, as one wishes. If I am free both to do A and to forbear from doing A, I am at liberty to ask for and accept payment in return for a promise not to do A. Commercial transactions commonly have this feature. If, for example, you want to buy my car but will not have the full amount until next week, I may ask for a smaller sum in exchange for my promise not to sell to anyone else for seven days. Such agreements to forbear from action are simply garden-variety commercial transactions that routinely receive our judicial blessing. Now if we put the two of these innocent acts together--I will promise to keep your dark secret quiet if you pay me--we somehow get an agreement without legal validity: indeed one that makes the offeror into a criminal. This is puzzling. Much of the literature on this paradox has sought an ethical/jurisprudential justification for holding that blackmail belongs on the list of criminal offenses. I think it is right to say that there is no generally accepted account of why this should be so.(1) But after considering much of that inconclusive work, Block and his Libertarian comrades have urged that we eliminate the paradox by legalizing blackmail. That approach suggests that we pause and reflect on the place of contracts within the judicial system. Taking the blackmailer's agreement as an exemplar, this is what I propose to do. If Block's arguments were to prevail, then we would expect the offense of blackmail to be struck from the criminal codes. For the would-be blackmailer, decriminalization eliminates the costs and hazards of prosecution. Given the mean price of secrecy set out in his examples -- $5000 -- one would anticipate that blackmail would become an economically attractive career choice. It is a useful analytical approach to look carefully at the blackmailer's business, trying to conceive it as a lucrative opportunity in Block's libertarian utopia. Having made such a career choice, how might one prosper? …

The Criminal Justice Commission: A Political Football?

Queensland's Fitzgerald Inquiry was expected to last six weeks. It ran for two years (1987–1989). The inquiry was established to look at suspected police misconduct. It ended up exposing vertical corruption and widespread abuse of power in the Police Force; a less than arms-length relationship between police and the National Party government which contributed to the lack of effective police accountability processes; other official misconduct by non-police public servants; and political dishonesty and corruption.

Complaints Against the Police: A Focus Group Study of Citizen Perceptions, Goals, and Expectations

This article explores citizen perceptions, goals, and expectations in filing complaints against the police. It is based on 10 focus groups representing a cross-section of a medium-sized midwestern community. Its findings confirm earlier research indicating a poor "fit" between complainant goals and complaint procedures. Although most existing complaint procedures are designed to investigate complaints of officer misconduct and to punish guilty officers, relatively few of the focus group participants indicated punishment as their goal. The majority wanted either an explanation for the incident, an apology, a face-to-face encounter with the officer, or documentation of the incident on the officer's record.

Prosecuting the press: First amendment balancing and state statutes that punish publication of information of crimes and official misconduct

The press has been sued and prosecuted under state criminal statutes prohibiting the truthful publication of information. These cases have involved the truthful publication of information of sexual assault victims, juvenile offenders and public officials under confidential investigation, as well as grand jury information. The Supreme Court generally has provided relief to the press, but has eschewed finding specific statutes facially unconstitutional. Instead, the Court has used an ad hoc balancing approach and rendered fact‐specific holdings. The article concludes that categorical First Amendment protection for truthful information of alleged crimes and acts of official misconduct is an appropriate goal.

From Lynskey to Nolan: The Corruption of British Politics and Public Service?

organization. The wider, academic use of 'corruption', used as shorthand to describe any use of official position, resources or facilities for personal benefit, or in milder form possible conflict of interest between public position and private benefit, is dealt with in part by legislation, by common law (which includes the offence of misconduct in public office) and by internal regulations. The more general question of what is now termed 'the ethical environment' the mix of law, regulations, culture, attitudes and traditions, procedures, and controls that governs the behaviour of those in public life is usually described by the general phrase 'standards of conduct'. The increasing concern about what is seen as a decline especially on the part of Members of Parliament in personal behaviour or conduct during the late 1980s and the early 1990s prompted sufficient criticism to persuade the Conservative government to establish in 1994 the Nolan Committee to review the whole question of corruption (in the wider academic meaning of the term) and standards of conduct in public life. However, to comprehend the concern and to assess the first report of the committee (published in May 1995), it is important to understand the development of standards of conduct, and previous official reactions to concern, as well as the impact of Conservative governments' reforms to the public sector since 1979.

État et Cortes au Portugal sous la Dynastie des Avis: le cas du Régent Don Pedro

SUMMARY In this article, Maria Helena da Cruz Coelho has examined the role of the Cortes of Portugal, comprising the standard three Estates, and formally established since 1254 at least, during the dynasty of the Avis. Its founder, John I, was elected by the Cortes in 1385 and the Cortes was actively involved in the politics of the period. The article is focused on the regency of Peter from 1439 to 1488. The Regent Peter was notable for being a highly educated and scholarly ruler, who wrote a book on political thought, ‘A Virtuosa Benfeitoria’. Thus it is possible to compare his stated principles of good government with the governmental record of his regency. The article does this with particular reference to the grievances articulated in the Cortes by the third Estate against the misconduct of royal officers and the extortions and abuses of feudal landlords. The conclusion is that although the Regent was genuinely trying to alleviate the grievances expressed in the Cortes, the endemic warfare of the peri...

More on Official Misconduct

More on Official Misconduct