Procedural Rules in the Code of Professional Ethics of the Hungarian Government Officials Corps. Regarding the Whistleblower's Hope for His Right to a Fair Trial

Abstract

In my present study I examine the effective provisions of the Code of Professional Ethics of the Hungarian Government Officials Corps. (hereinafter referred to as: Code) with special attention to its procedural rules. The first part of the Code contains such ethical principles that are binding to all Hungarian government officials, on the other hand it can be affirmed that the intentional or negligent violation of these principles constitutes an ethical misconduct. Given that these ethical provisions are cogent rules and no grey zone exists in these cases, the ethical procedure can be considered an irregularity procedure by its nature which aims to determine whether an ethical misconduct has previously been committed and if so the competent ethical councils have to apply an ethical sanction after a just and fair non-public ethical procedure has been carried out by themselves. According to the present regulation two types of ethical sanctions are incorporated in the Code: warning and reprimand, the latter is the stricter one. In this study I do not aim to analyze whether it is acceptable that the Code incorporates both the substantive legal rules and the procedural provisions as well, I do not even give a comprehensive analysis of the relevant Hungarian professional ethical codes and I also do not present the historical development of the Code. My goal with publishing this scientific paper should be to draw the reader’s kind attention to those problems that arise from the effective regulation as the whistleblower’s right to a fair ethical trial is not fully guaranteed in Hungary even if the ethical procedure in case has been conducted with the best goodwill and equity formerly. I hope that I can provide the professional community with some reference points in order to rethink the necessity of the rectification of the Code which can be based on a scientific approach so that the officials do not need to wait for a possible political solution that can easily be changed at any time. Ethical rules are permanent, consequently ethical procedures carried out on the basis of the Code should have the function to optimize the chance of the whistleblowers to enforce their right in case of any ethical violations in which they have become victims because labour law solutions cannot be applied directly in all cases.