1
 THE PROBLEMS OF CONFLICT OF AUTHORISATION AND
AMBIGUITY OF DUTY IN THE TURKISH PUBLIC
BUREAUCRACY THE CASE OF COUNCIL OF ETHICS FOR
THE PUBLIC SERVICE (CEPS)

• Res.Assist. Ezgi SECKINER
• Assoc.Prof. Ugur OMURGONULSEN
• Hacettepe University
• Department of Political Science and Public
  Administration
• Ankara-Turkey
• seckiner_at_hacettepe.edu.tr
• omur_at_hacettepe.edu.tr

2

• Council of Ethics for the Public Service (CEPS),
  is a new institution that observes and then
  conducts ethical inquiries on the conducts of
  higher-level public officials in Turkey on the
  basis ethical principles and standards.
• Since the date CEPS was established (2004), it
  has been debated that CEPS has been in conflict
  of task and authority with other controlling
  institutions, particularly with institutional
  inspection boards and disciplinary committees in
  terms of ethical inquiry.

3

• CEPS has two tasks
• 1) Spreading ethical culture and creating ethical
  awareness in the public setor viaformal and
  informal ethics trainings. (awareness function).
• 2) Announcing its decisions about ethical
  violations of ethics principles via the Official
  Gazette (sanction). (even this unique ethical
  sanction was annulled by the Constitutional Court
  in 2010).

4

• Those tasks bring two problems
• 1) Conflict of Authority (with institutional
  inspection and disciplinary boards).
• 2) Task Ambiguity (with ethics commissions).

5
Interviews

• According to the some experts of CEPS, the sphere
  of task and power is clearly indicated in its
  law. CEPS deals with the high-ranking public
  officials who are clearly stated in the law.
  Inspection and discipline committees deal not
  with high-ranking bureucrats but lower-level
  officials. Thus, it does not have a power
  conflict with these institutions in this respect.

6

• 2) The Carrot-Stick Methaphor
• When one performs an action, using the rabbit
  metaphor, depending on the result, you either
  reward him, that is to say you give him a carrot,
  or punish him you show him the stick. We, at
  present, are at a situation in which we have
  undertaken both the carrot and stick parts of the
  action. The review committees and discipline
  committees also do function as the stick. Here,
  coincidences naturally take place. Our main task
  shall be to give the carrot.

7

• 3) In the studies made under the topic of
  prevention and reduction of corruption the
  absence of preventive mechanism is often
  underlined.
• Ethics is a concept which is stated in order to
  put preventive mechanisms into action. What is
  preventive mechanism? It is the consciences of
  the individuals. We, by emphasizing ethics, by
  training, try to clean (restart) the dirty
  consciences of the individuals to some extent.

8
Inability to Institutionalize

• 4) CEPS has not yet gained its legitimacy since
  2004 and has not been fully accepted by the
  present controlling institutions.
• The Council of Ethics, is hereinafter treated as
  the child who just moved to the neighbourhood.
  That is to say, it has been excluded by the
  existent bureaucracy inspection and
  disicplinary, supreme councils. Whereas, our task
  sphere is not much related to punishment or
  sanction. We have made training seminaries in 10
  regions. Inspection boards do not conduct
  training programmes. Our goals (fight against
  corruption) are the same with them, methods are
  different. We, in some sense, are shareholders
  with them, in a popular word. There is the fear
  of if the Council of Ethics will steal our
  roles? Which is not right.

9
Task Ambiguity

• Institutional ethics commissions do not exactly
  know what to do. They are in act supposed to
  determine strategy for ethics training. The
  members of the ethics commissions have the duty
  to make recommendations to and to guide the
  personnel about the ethics issue, however, this
  does not take place in the implementation. Just
  think, what does making recommendations to and
  guiding them mean? How it is going to be carried
  out? No manager warns his or her personnel saying
  you are not behaving ethically. He or she has
  no such authority foreseen in the laws.

10
Suggestions

• CEPS should primarily be dealing not with the
  sanction part of the fight against corruption
  (hard measures) but with the training part (soft
  measures) in other words, it should work for
  filling the gap of preventive mechanism.
• Structures such as inspection and disciplinary
  boards should support the task of increasing
  ethical consciousness which CEPS carries out by
  trainings and organizing projects.

11

• CEPS, Department of Human Rights, Ombudsman (in
  the proposal of constitutional amendment),
  Equality Committee, and Board of Review of Access
  to Information may be united under one body.
• This new body should enjoy its autonomy, public
  entity and its own personnel and budget.
• The relationship with this new body and the
  Inspection Board of the Prime Ministry (which is
  currently assigned to a role of combating
  corruption) should be clarified.

12
THANKS FOR LISTENING