Is there a need for a civil service code of ethics?

Abstract

In the article the author substantiates the necessity of optimizing the law and morality in regulating behavioral and professional management performance of civil servants and the possible ways of achieving such optimization. Identifying the optimum relationship of law and morality in the regulation of the activity and behavior of civil servants is an urgent and important task. In order to resolve it, one must correctly assess the moral level of society, the real impact of specific moral principles and appropriate standards of conduct by its members as well as endeavoring to exert the inclusion of subjective factors in ensuring the implementation and maintenance of certain ethical standards in the civil service. The formal requirements for the displacement of state civil servants from the normative legal acts in the Model Code of Professional Ethics and Official Conduct of civil servants does not transform them into moral requirements. They are retained within their status of legal norms, both because they are prescribed as per above, secondly, they rule out initial alternatives in human behavior peculiar to moral requirements and thirdly, presuppose the responsibility for their failure to observe them as not being criminal. The mechanism of action remains legal and not moral and which must be enforced, with the possibility of the inclusion of punitive sanctions. This significantly reduces the possibility of moral regulation and remains relevant in the development and implementation of the moral code the State civil service.