Sticks and Stones . .
. Ethics
Moment July 2006
Do you recall the childhood saying that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me?” Surely you do. It is often used as a defense against unwanted name calling and taunting. But words of course can be hurtful. Consider Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, who uttered a few words in February 2005 that landed him a 30 day suspension from office. Mayor Livingstone in response to sharp questioning by The Evening Standard reporter Oliver Finegold asked him what he did before he worked for newspaper. “Were you a German war criminal?” Finegold replied: “No, I’m Jewish. I wasn’t a German war criminal.” Then the Mayor retorted, “Well you might be, but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard. You’re just doing it ‘cause you’re paid to, aren’t you?”
Three days later the Board of Deputies of British Jews filed a complaint with the Standards Board of England setting in motion an investigation of whether the Mayor had breached the code of conduct of the Greater London Authority. The Standards Board was formally established in 2001 by the Local Government Act of 2000. The Board's main task is to ensure that standards of ethical conduct are maintained across local government authorities and to deal with complaints of misconduct against individual members.
After a
year-long investigation that cost British taxpayers more than $83,000, the
findings were handed over to the independent, non-elected Adjudication Panel for
Questions:
1. Are “words” sufficient to call into question an elected official’s ethics?
2. Should a non-elected body have the authority to remove an elected official who has not committed a crime but may have behaved in a manner that “brought disrepute to his or her office?”
3. Are
the ethics of local elected officials in