THE SAFETY OF A PERSON IN A SOCIETY RULED BY CORRUPT

PEOPLE

We are all familiar with the wrong impact of corruption in distorting markets and
competition, corroding the integrity of the private sector, ruining the investment
climate, eroding the effectiveness of development, breeding cynicism among citizens,
damaging governmental legitimacy and generally undermining the quality of
governance.
In this essay I shall focus on the devastating impact of corruption through another set
of lenses, those of peace and security. To the extent that by security we mean
human security everything that goes to ensuring the basic safety and well-being of
individuals in our societies we know how much this is tied up with the quality of
basic governance, including respect for the rule of law, and with the effective
operation of a states economy.
Societies made lawless by corruption are not safe for most people to live in;
transnational criminal organizations, bribing their way across borders, generate
despair by their trafficking in drugs, weapons and people; economies made hopelessly
inefficient by corruption are those where continued poverty is guaranteed for all those
who cant manipulate the system; diversion of government funds away from
expenditure on social sectors like education and health is a direct and major
contributor to poverty and human misery; and the diversion of development funds to
corrupt individuals, and their systematic misappropriation by kleptocratic
governments, also shamefully reinforce poverty and human insecurity generally.
But what I want to focus in my essey is a security dimension that is less often
discussed: the impact of corruption on human security in the broad sense, on state
security in the traditional, narrower sense what is necessary to stop sovereign states
disintegrating through internal conflict, to stop them being torn apart by external
attack, or to enable them to recover from catastrophic violence.
There are a number of things that can I think usefully be said about the direct
contribution of corruption to undermining peace to making not just individuals but
whole states insecure, or much less secure than they would otherwise be. Let me take
some areas in particular: the role of corruption in contributing to civil conflict and
corruption in the justice system. All of them I will try to highlight further, in much
more detail as follows:
Corruption and Civil Conflict
The causes of violent internal conflict are as many and varied as the conflicts
themselves, and generalizations here are always dangerous. Poverty by itself rarely
generates violent reaction, and for economic or political grievance including
discontent with systematic stealing and misappropriation of state funds by corrupt
governments to become explosive, this usually has to be linked to strong
identification with a group that has suffered longstanding discrimination or
marginalisation. But it is difficult to believe that the corrupt and inequitable

distribution of wealth and welfare has not played a part in stimulating many of the
civil conflicts driven by grievance, greed or both that have had erupted over the
decades, not least in resource-rich countries.
An easier judgement to make than any about motivation is that corruption has
undoubtedly facilitated much of the most savage civil conflict that we have seen.
What makes most such wars both possible, and really lethal, is the huge and still
largely unchecked worldwide spread of small arms and light weapons: and corrupt
transactions, involving border smuggling and diversions of material, are the norm in
this areal, massively compounding the negative impact of irresponsible trading and
weak export controls.
The money to buy such weapons, or to initiate and sustain violent conflict in other
ways, often comes from the theft or misuse of natural resources, West and Central
African blood diamonds being the best known example. And financing major civil
conflict from the proceeds of drug, contraband or human trafficking has long been a
phenomenon in countries from Colombia to the Balkans, the former Soviet Union and
beyond.
Corruption in the justice system
This is a well-known subject by all of us. Romanians' confidence in public institutions
is low, and corruption is viewed as an endemic phenomenon. Concerning the judicial
system, its integrity sustains its credibility which, in turn, fuels people's confidence in
the judiciary.
Confidence in public institutions is primarily built on the perceived fairness of
services and integrity of personnel. In forming this perception, people rely on their
own experiences related to corruption or on outside reports on corruption.
There is a major discrepancy between the perceived scope of corruption in the judicial
system and people's experience in this respect. Sometimes money was offered from
lawyers to magistrates, but without proof that it was actually accepted. More often
than not, bribes were offered in exchange for speeding up procedures and for the
assignment of certain cases to certain magistrates. Most of those who knew about
corruption misdeeds by judicial personnel did not report them because of the
complicated procedures that would ensue or due to the belief that nothing would
happen (people distrust the criminal prosecution bodies). Apart from corruption,
people were dissatisfied with the quality and length of proceedings, characterised by
magistrate incompatibility cases and instances of procedural abuse. The typology of
complaints prompts us to believe that the general public often mistakes procedural
errors and negligence for corruption misdeeds.
Another example, is that the general public perceives the phrase "corruption in the
judicial system" to refer exclusively to bribes taken by judges and, possibly, by
prosecutors. The purpose of my esseynamely the identification of vulnerable areas
which affect the organisation and functioning of a system designed precisely to
protect citizens' rights and to formulate suggestions for an adequate judicial anticorruption policyrequires a comprehensive analysis of corruption in this system.
This is why on the one hand, we cannot overlook other categories of personnel
working in the system, and on the other hand we must also examine bribe cases
initiated by citizens (because the very act of offering money is an act of corruption in
itself, regardless of whether the public agent accepts it or not).

Corruption is a threat to democracy, the rule of law and human rights. It undermines
the principles of good governance, social equity and justice. It distorts competition,
prevents economic development and the stability of democratic institutions and the
moral foundation of society. The social costs of corruption manifest in the amounts of
money spent perpetrating the misdeeds, the expenses incurred through its
investigation, the undermining of public confidence and the additional corruption
generated thereby (the formation of corruption chains).
By breaking rules, duties and morality, corruption causes societal and community
disintegration in that it negatively affects responsibility and social transparency, and
wears away social trust. It leads to the loss of the integrity of individuals, who must in
turn lie and apply double standards.
Judicial corruption affects not only the integrity of judicial professionals, but also the
system as a whole. It encroaches on the impartiality that ought to define magistrate
duties and, in general, on responsibility at all levels. The high costs and severe effects
entailed by judicial corruption, both directly and indirectly, may be grouped as
follows:
For the judicial system, corruption affects the very independence of the system:
it affects the functioning capacity: justice becomes private (preferential), or inefficient
(which is tantamount to injustice). The overall system becomes unpredictable and
insecure;
political agents find self-protection mechanisms: in high-level corruption cases, there
will be attempts to bribe magistrates, to meddle with their work or to interfere with
their career;
the quality of services decreases: once the personnel derive extra benefits from giving
preferential services, they no longer remain interested in improving the quality of
their services;
the number of corruption cases pending in courts increases: the extent to which
professional bodies combat corruption will cause investigations to be more frequent.
For judicial personnel, corruption affects their integrity, professionalism and
accountability and may cause:
a decrease in professionalism and quality of work: judicial personnel will no longer
interested in improving their professional skills as long as the services they have
already been providing ensure additional incomes;
corruption among co-workers: the illegal, yet lucrative conduct will be replicated
unless policies are created to prevent it. It causes justice to become subdued;
perpetuation of unfair practices over time: unpunished corruption misdeeds are an
incentive for judicial personnel to continue to carry on this type of conduct;
a decline in courage: failure to punish corruption and the perpetuation of such
misdeeds weaken judicial personnel's confidence in reforming the system, discourage
employees from reporting them and invite pessimism.
In conclusion, this essey show us the gravity of corruption acts in a society ruled by
unprepared persons who struggle to obtain their own advantages.
If each of us will have the sense of responsability for their actions, the society where
we live will be more evolved, more structureted.