The LRH Comm is Ethics Authority and should prevent Ethics Officers from abusing their post. However, seniors to the Ethics Officer often make it difficult unintentionally for the E/O to do his job. The following are some of the ways it has been done.
In all of these 12 ways, it is assumed the E/O knows his hat and is doing his job well. If this is not the case it is up to the LRH Comm to advise him correctly, get him checked out on Ethics policy and failing this to report him with all facts to the higher org.
Given a well trained Ethics Officer he can be prevented from Inspecting, Reporting and Adminstering Ethics by one or more of the following.
1. Overloading the Ethics Officer’s lines with unnecessary orders to do needless investigations. Such orders being labelled “URGENT” and carrying a penalty for the Ethics Officer if not immediately complied with.
2. Allowing bypass orders to go directly to the Ethics Officer from seniors, thus not only leaving him prone to overload but also putting him in a position where he can be “chopped” by others for not complying with every order immediately.
3. Not passing on or acting on the data contained in reports made by the Ethics Officer, destroying or losing them.
4. Giving the Ethics Officer orders and then refusing to abide by these yourself. E.g., “Every staff member who comes to work late in the morning must be assigned non-existence.” Roll up at 10 a.m. yourself and refuse the condition.
5. Ordering the Ethics Officer to assign someone a stated condition and then adding that the Ethics Officer will be assigned that condition if he doesn’t make it stick.
6. Making the Ethics Officer wrong for cancelling a condition which was unjust.
7. Violating Ethics Policies and telling the Ethics Officer that it doesn’t apply here.
E.g., Senior violates justice policy in handling of an individual then tells Ethics Officer not to worry as the policy doesn’t apply to Joe Smith who has a bad record anyway.
8. Using senior powers to lumber the Ethics Officer with conditions and stiff ethics, leaving him with no one to appeal to or back him up in his work.
9. Putting the Ethics Officer into lower condition for “not wearing his hat” when he refused to comply with an illegal order.
10. Ordering the Ethics Officer to do an investigation, but telling him what he must find and what conditions must be assigned to whom, before the investigation has even started.
11. Refusing to accept an Ethics Officer’s actual evidence on misdemeanors, crimes or high crimes concerning a senior, but instead reprimanding the Ethics Officer for attempting to “undermine a senior executive.”
12. Refusing to accept the Ethics Officer’s findings, invalidating his administration of justice and evaluating and invalidating his application of Ethics actions in a matter where the Ethics Officer was applying standard Ethics Tech and attempting to get him or actually ordering him to lower or raise the conditions or change the findings which the Ethics Officer knows to be true, just and correct.This list was submitted by an Ex-E/O.