On #ProtectionfromRetaliation #Impartiality and #Accountability
Since its establishment in 2006, the UN #Ethics Office failed to protect staff from retaliation for reporting misconduct or for cooperating with audits/investigations. Protection against retaliation is one of the key functions of the Ethics’ Office. The root cause of this failure can be traced to the existing structural and organizational deficiencies of many inter-dependent #UnitedNations entities.
Firstly, the head of the Ethics Office is appointed by the Secretary-General and is accountable to the SG. Not impartial and not independent. Secondly, at its best, the Ethics Office can make a finding of prima-facie case of retaliation, however, it does not have any power to investigate. The only power it has is to refer the case to OIOS for investigation.
Turning to OIOS. The USG of OIOS is appointed by the SG and is also accountable to the SG. Not impartial and not independent. Normally, OIOS investigations take about a year or two. Thirdly and more importantly, when and if OIOS establishes retaliation, it can simply refer the case to the Office of Human Resources, which will ultimately make a decision of whether or not to initiate the appropriate disciplinary process.
Procedural details aside, let’s take a closer look at what this means for your everyday international civil servant.
Though staff are given the option for interim protection measures, they are rarely protected.
Worse, most of the time, retaliation is exacerbated during the investigative process. In the meantime, perpetrators are free to act according to their whims. Not surprisingly, by the time an investigation is launched by OIOS, the perpetrator most often a senior official, resigns.
There goes your #accountability framework.
Nowhere is this more dismayingly reflected than in UNAT’s judgments this week in the case of Fosse No. 2022-UNAT-1310 and No. 2022-UNAT-1305.
“Ms. Fosse’s appeal raises an increasingly common issue of what happens to such complaints when, as occurs not infrequently, the person complained against leaves the Organisation following the making of a complaint but before its conclusion.”
The systemic failures of the principle of good governance and accountability and the role of the Ethics Office are accurately depicted in paras 21 and 22 of Judgment 1305.
“21. The Ethics Office concluded that retaliation had not been established. It noted moreover that the Executive Secretary had resigned and … there was no continued need for the interim protective measures..”
“22. The Ethics Office, however, recorded that…this did not mean that no misconduct had occurred; nor did it condone the behaviour of the Executive Secretary. It therefore recommended to the Secretary-General that he consider placing a note on the official status file of the ES indicating that she separated from service during a retaliation investigation… “
#UnitedNations #internationalorganizations
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