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22.10.2014 Opinion

Corruption As A Violation Of Our Socio-Economic Rights

By Samuel Roberts Ahorklui
Corruption As A Violation Of Our Socio-Economic Rights
22.10.2014 LISTEN

Introduction

The relationship between corruption and human rights is only beginning to be seriously examined in recent times. But a large part of the prevailing discussion on corruption tends to emphasize on its economic consequences, ignoring one of its most negative effects-the impact it has on human rights. Transparency International an anti-corruption organisation has stated in their numerous reports the serious economic, social and political adversity corruption can do to a nation and its population, which directly results in violation of fundamental rights and freedoms.

Anti-corruption advocates argue that corruption disables a state from meeting its obligations to respect, fulfill, and protect the human rights of its citizens. The relationship between corruption and economic performance is now well understood. Corruption has been blamed for the failures of certain “developing” countries to develop, and recent empirical research confirms a link between higher perceived corruption and lower investment and growth (Mauro 1995; World Bank 1997). Political scandals in countries across the globe have sparked public outrage against corruption in recent years, and in dozens of countries discredited governments have been forced out of office. At the same time, corruption is viewed as one of the main obstacles that post communist countries face in attempting to consolidate democratic institutions and open, market economies (Shleifer 1997).

The adoption of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which came into force in 2005, reflects this emerging consensus. Corruption is now being addressed by a very broad range of institutions, including governments, international financial institutions, multilateral and bilateral development agencies, businesses and business networks, international and local civil society organisations and academic bodies. International anti-corruption laws further emphasizes on the economic and political impact of corruption than the human rights impact (UNCAC, 2005).

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of corruption on socio-economic rights of the individual. The definition of corruption, types of corruption, its causes shall be my point of departure. Finally the paper will look at what needs to be done to curb the menace of this canker.

What is Corruption
The term “corruption” comes from the Latin word corruptio which means “moral decay, wicked behaviour, putridity or rottenness”. Even though there is no single universally agreed definition of corruption, it is defined in various ways. Usually corruption is defined as 'an illegal act that involves the abuse of a public trust or office for some private benefit', or 'the misuse of public office for private gain.' Such definition has two limitations in the current understanding of corruption. It only deals with corruption in the public sector, while excluding corruption in the private sector and only covers the recipients of proceeds of corruption while it also covers the act of giving.

According to Kofi Anan, “Corruption is an insidious plague that has a wide range of corrosive effects on societies. It undermines democracy and the rule of law, leads to violations of human rights, distorts markets, erodes the quality of life, and allows organised crime, terrorism and other threats of human security to flourish. Corruption hurts the poor disproportionately by diverting funds intended for development, undermining a government's ability to provide basic services, feeding inequality and injustice, and discouraging foreign aid and investment. Corruption is a key element in economic underperformance, and a major obstacle to poverty alleviation and development”

Transparency International (TI) also defined corruption as a 'misuse of entrusted power for private gain'. The TI's definition is similar with the usual definition except it includes private sector corruption. In the words of the World Bank (WB) corruption is 'an abuse of public authority for the purpose of acquiring personal gain' (The World Bank 1997:1).

In Colin Nye's classical and most widely used definition, corruption is “behaviour which deviates from the formal duties of a public role because of private regarding (personal, close family, private clique) pecuniary or status gains; or violates rules against the exercise of certain types of private-regarding influence” (Nye 1967:417). A somewhat updated version with the same elements is found in the definition by Mushtaq Khan, who defines it as “behaviour that deviates from the formal rules of conduct governing the actions of someone in a position of public authority because of private-regarding motives such as wealth, power, or status” (Khan 1996:12).

Causes of Corruption
Available research reveals that the causes of corruption are diverse and depend on the different contextual environments. Transparency International (2009) held that corruption is rearing its ugly head in more and more severe ways due to the weakening of social values, with the broader public interest and social responsibility being subordinated to the enhancement of material status in the personal ethics of many. Besides, lack of transparency and accountability in the public integrity systems are contributing factors for corruption.

Ringera (2012) in a speech delivered at the Commonwealth lawyer's conference, the causes of corruption are economic, institutional, political or societal. The economic causes of corruption are related to pecuniary considerations, representing corruption that is need-driven as opposed to greed driven. This assertion is further confirmed by TI in attributing poverty and low salary as causes of corruption. Increase of wants and inability to maintain one's family lives forces officials to compromise public trust and honesty for some fringe benefits. Institutional causes of corruption include monopoly and wide discretionary powers for public officers, poor accountability, lack of effective and efficient enforcement of the law, absence of institutional mechanisms to deal with corruption, existence of a weak civil society, and the absence of press freedom.

Klitgaard (1988) shares the same view with Ringera (2012) by holding that corruption is prevalent when 'someone has monopoly power over a good or service, has the discretion to decide whether you receive it and how much you get, and is not accountable.' The political causes of corruption arise from the structure and functions of political institutions, and the acquisition and exercise of political power. While societal causes refer to the attitudes and practices of the community. As the problem of corruption is multi-faceted, its causes are also diverse.

According to Balgun (2003), there is also a biblical explanation for the causes of corruption. After Adam broke the law and committed sin to his posterity, what follows upon this is, 'the corruption of nature derived unto them from him'; by which is meant, 'the general depravity of mankind, of all the individuals of human nature, and of all the powers and faculties of the soul, and members of the body'. As Human nature is imperfect, corruption will exist in all human endeavours. Selfishness and greed are the constituting elements of human imperfection which leads to corruption.

Suppression of human rights is also one of the causes of corruption. In a country where there is no freedom of speech and the right to information corruption is bound to flourish. Because of fear of being attacked or arrested individuals in such environment cannot report the acts of corruption.

Forms of Corruption
According to Leys (1965), Corruption manifests itself in different ways in different circumstances. But there are some forms of corruption which recur in every system. These are grand corruption, petty corruption, active corruption, passive corruption, political corruption and systematic corruption. Grand corruption occurs when a high level government official committed acts that distort policies or the central functioning of the state, enabling him/her to benefit at the expense of the public good. It is a form of corruption which pervades the highest levels of a national government, leading to a broad erosion of confidence in good governance, rule of law and economic stability. It distorts the functioning of the central government.

Petty corruption is an everyday abuse of entrusted power by low- and mid-level public officials in their interactions with ordinary citizens, who often are trying to access basic goods or services in places like hospitals, schools, police departments and other agencies. It is a situation where a public official demands or expects money for doing an act which he or she is ordinarily required by law to do, or when a bribe is paid to obtain services which the official is prohibited from providing.

Bribery, embezzlement, theft, fraud, extortion, nepotism, favouritism, and Clientelism (classifications of corruption by the United Nations Office on Drug and Crime (UNODC) can be grouped under either grand corruption or petty corruption depending upon the amount of money lost and the sector where it occurs (UNODC,1997).

In discussions of transactional offences such as bribery; 'active bribery' usually refers to the offering or paying of the bribe, while 'passive bribery' refers to the receiving of the bribe. This form of corruption describes the demand and supply side of corruption. Political corruption on the other hand is the manipulation of policies, institutions and rules of procedure in the allocation of resources and financing by political decision makers, who abuse their position to sustain their power, status and wealth (UNODC,1997).

Another form of corruption is systematic. According to Ackerman (1999), Systematic corruption occurs where corruption permeates the entire society to the point of being accepted as a means of conducting everyday transactions. It is a situation in which the major institutions and processes of the state are routinely dominated and used by corrupt individuals and groups, and in which many people have few practical alternatives to dealing with corrupt officials. It affects institutions and influences individual behaviour at all levels of a political and socio-economic system. Such form of corruption is embodied in specific socio-cultural environments, and tends to be monopolistic, organized and difficult to avoid.

Impact of Corruption on Socio-Economic Rights
Corruption undermines economic and social development of a country. There is agreement that the consequences of corrupt practices are widespread and negative for our society. Evidently, corruption has the potential of undermining the enjoyment of human rights in all areas, be they economic, social, cultural, civil, or political. But for the purpose of this paper, the focus will be on the impact of corruption on our socio-economic rights.

The rationale behind claiming that corruption is a violation of human rights usually stems from the general notion that money lost to corruption could be used to buy medicine, equip schools, and provide for food. Hence, it is useful to analyse in more detail the corrupt practice of embezzlement, particularly the embezzlement of funds destined to social and economic programmes (Heidenheimer, 2002). This recurrent corrupt practice may affect a wide range of human rights most importantly our socio-economic rights. Corruption “denies development and quality of life to the most vulnerable members of society.” It is especially harmful in developing countries, which have fewer resources and thus are more vulnerable if those resources are wasted or not used effectively and equitably.

The poor as well as vulnerable groups such as women, children, people with disabilities or minorities are the first ones hit by corruption when bribery and abuse denies them access to basic services, health, education, and land. The rights to food, water, education, health, and the ability to seek justice can be violated if a bribe is required to gain access to these basic rights. In the words of Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at a panel discussion on the negative impact of corruption on the enjoyment of human rights. She stated that “Corruption kills. The money stolen through corruption every year is enough to feed the world's hungry 80 times over. Nearly 870 million people go to bed hungry every night, many of them children”. Pillay reminded participants that, “from 2000 to 2009 developing countries lost US$8.44 trillion to illicit financial flows, ten times more than the foreign aid they received”. “The impact of corruption on development and on human rights is multifaceted; so too must be our response”, concluded Pillay (UNHCHR, 2003).

Corruption as a Violation of the Right to Education

The right to education is guaranteed in several international instruments, most notably Articles 13 and 14 of the ICESCR. The right to education has both a social and freedom dimension. States are obliged to ensure access and availability of education at primary, secondary and higher levels. The misappropriation of funds in the education sector has the effect of reducing availability of educational resources, infrastructure as well as human and capital resources. Corruption in the education sector includes absenteeism of teachers, some teachers pay bribes to heads of schools to absent themselves for further studies or personal engagements, misappropriation of funds by school bursars and headmasters. For example, bribes are paid to secure places for a child and teachers do not complete the core syllabus during the school term to create a demand for private lessons during the school holidays. Poor parents cannot afford to pay the bribes and may opt to enrol only the boy-child.

Bribes are also paid, sometimes for unqualified students to be admitted in detriment to brilliant but poor children. Corruption can also manifest itself during the recruitment of teachers where under-qualified staff may be hired after bribing the recruitment officials. When embezzlement of funds destined to education result in lack of education facilities and teaching materials, the state is clearly not complying with its obligation to fulfil the right to education and thus the right to education is violated.

Corruption as a Violation of the Right to Work or to be Employed

Every person has the right to earn his living by a freely chosen and accepted work (ICESCR Art. 6(1)). This right should not be understood as a right to obtain employment, but as a right of access to employment opportunities. An essential element of the right to work is that work must be freely chosen and accepted. In this sense, the right to work is complemented by the prohibition of slavery, servitude and forced and compulsory labour (ICCPR Art. 8). There are, however, many cases of forced labour and in several of those cases corruption is somehow involved. Corruption can be linked to the restriction of the right to work if a labour inspector is bribed by an employer so laws prohibiting forced labour are not enforced. As stated above, freely chosen work is an essential element of the right to work. Hence, in this example, corruption as a necessary tool to sustain forced labour also violates the right to work.

Corruption as a Violation of the Right to Health.
The right to health (ICESCR Art. 12) is usually understood in terms of the availability, accessibility, acceptability, and quality of the public health and health-care facilities, goods, services, and programmes. Health facilities, as well as goods and services have to be available in sufficient quantity within the state, accessible to everyone without discrimination, and scientifically and medically appropriate and of good quality. Most corruption cases affect several of these elements of the right to health. This is particularly true in the case of embezzlement of public funds made available to the Health Ministry.

As resources are drained from health budgets through embezzlement and procurement fraud, less funding is available to pay salaries and fund operations and maintenance, leading to demotivated staff, lower quality of care, and reduced service availability and use. The state violates the “obligation to respect” when its officials misappropriate, embezzle or steal funds that have been allocated to the health sector; they accept bribes in exchange for, for example, a construction permit for a health facility; sell fake drugs or sells counterfeit drugs in collusion of other providers and divert drugs into the black market. In other words, corrupt acts and especially embezzlement have the potential of interfering simultaneously with the availability, accessibility, and quality of the right to health and thus violate such right.

Corruption as a Violation of the Right to Adequate Housing

The right to adequate housing, a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, is concerned with the measures required to ensure that everyone has housing which is safe, healthy and adequate (ICESCR Art. 11.1). All persons should possess a degree of legal security of tenure which guarantees protection against forced eviction, harassment and threats (ICESCR Art. 11.1). This can be seriously undermined by corrupt means, when corruption is at the origin of the evictions. This happens if a company is interested in a piece of land to build a new commercial enterprise, but the land is occupied by an urban poor area. In such a case the company may resort to bribing a key official in order to be awarded a lease over the land. This, in turn, may result in the forced eviction of the inhabitants of the area. The bribes can also be given directly to relevant people in the urban area instead than bribing a public official.

There are other cases in which village leaders were bribed into signing blank contracts with the local land administration, who then sold the land to developers, eventually leading to the eviction of the entire village. Corruption in procurement can also affect this aspect of the right to housing. Embezzlement of funds in a programme destined to build housing units, or bribery in the selection of contractors, may result in construction of substandard quality. In this and other ways, corruption can impair the security of tenure of the right to adequate housing.

Corruption as a Violation of the Right to a Fair Trial of Social Justice

The most relevant consequence of corruption in the administration of justice is that it renders a hearing unfair and affects the equality of the parties and the independence and impartiality of the tribunal. If a judge is bribed by one of the parties to rule in their favour, there is a clear violation of the right to equality of the party affected. If the right to equality before the courts and tribunals is affected, automatically the right to an impartial and independent tribunal is also infringed upon. When the judge is corrupted to give privilege to one party at the expense of the other, the tribunal is thus neither impartial nor independent.

Consequently, corruption in the administration of justice has the double effect of infringing upon the right to a fair trial and the right to an effective remedy (Grey, C. W. & Kaufmann, 1998). For instance, if a worker is unfairly dismissed from a company and the worker then brings a lawsuit against the company, such company may bribe the judge to obtain a favourable judgment. In the end, this person's right to a fair trial is violated simultaneously with the right to an effective remedy for the unfair dismissal.

Corruption as a Violation of the Right of the Child.

Corruption impairing the rights of the child is also present in cases of trafficking of children, particularly for sexual exploitation. Children have to be protected from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse (CRC Art. 34), and from abduction, sale, and trafficking (CRC Art.35) and Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography). Nonetheless, children are often victim of these crimes. In order to carry out the trafficking or sexual exploitation of children, criminals commonly partake in corruption, usually bribery. For instance, government officials need to be bribed so that the criminals are supplied with the necessary documents to cross borders, and law enforcement officials must be bribed so they turn a blind eye to these activities.

When children are not protected by the state against such criminal practices, the rights of the child to be protected from all forms of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse, and from abduction, sale, and trafficking are violated. Corruption is essential to carry out the violation. Bribery and corruption constitute an essential element in the chain of events that leads to and sustains these violations of the rights of the child. Without corruption all these illegal activities, like fraudulent inter-country adoptions, trafficking of children, and child labour could not take place.

Corruption as a Violation of The Right to Food
The right to food entails the right of everyone to be free from hunger. It is a component of the right to an adequate standard of living. This right is empowering in that people are supposed to be able to feed themselves. The state is obliged to take progressive steps that ensure that there is equal access to food. The core content of the right to food implies availability, safety, acceptability in terms of quality, and accessibility in economic and physical terms.

Corruption can seriously undermine the realisation of the right to food. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food identified corruption as one of the seven major economic obstacles that hinder or prevent the realisation of the right. In 1996, the Declaration of the World Food Summit expressly mentioned corruption as one of the causes of food insecurity. As it is commonly held with regards to other economic, social and cultural rights, corruption diverts essential resources away from social spending and thus affects, in either a direct or indirect way, the realisation of the right to food. Certain specific corrupt practices common around the world are known to negatively affect particular elements of the right to food.

Embezzlement may also affect the food safety and dietary needs recognised in the right to food (ICESCR Art. 11.2). When a public official misappropriates part of a subsidy scheme or other funds allocated for a food programme to instead purchase low-cost and substandard quality food, the dietary needs and food safety of that programme or scheme will be affected, possibly resulting in the violation of the right to food of the beneficiaries of the food scheme. When a person in the programme embezzles funds which were destined to buy and distribute food, or when he embezzles the food itself, and diverts the food into the black market for personal profit, this practice will result in socially vulnerable people without direct access to their food ration. The right to adequate food of these people is clearly violated by corruption.

From the above discussions, it is abundantly clear that Corruption negatively impacts on the enjoyment of human rights, most importantly our socio-economic rights. However the state or government with the help of the people can fight this canker. The following recommendations can help in the fight against corruption:

The Human Rights Approach. In a country where there is suppression of human rights, corruption is bound to flourish. When the right to information or free speech is not guaranteed acts of corruption cannot be reported. To this end, the state must do all it can to protect and promote the rights of its people.

Secondly, the independence of the judiciary is very necessary in the fight against corruption. The state must make sure that the judiciary is well financed and equipped to carry out its duties. Judges must be paid well to prevent them from taking bribes, this is because poor remuneration leads to corrupt activities.

Also, Human Rights Institutions, for example CHRAJ must also be funded and equipped with the necessary resources that they need to carry out its investigative works when issues of corruption are reported to them. This is because CHRAJ is a very important organization when it comes to the fight against corruption.

The Media. The media is a very important tool in the fight against corruption. Whilst it is true that media persons are sometimes bribed to cover up corrupt activities they can be motivated by paying them good salaries to prevent them from being influenced. In recent times, many corrupt activities were revealed to the public by the media. The state must therefore guarantee the freedom of the press and make sure media persons are well paid. Salaries and Remuneration of workers. Many anti-corruption advocates argue that low remuneration leads to corruption, especially at the public sector. What the state needs to do is to pay workers good salaries and allowances that will meet their living standards. If this is done corruption will be minimized.

Civil Society Organizations must partner with government and other anti-corruption organizations in the effort to combat corruption by educating the public on the negative impact of corruption on our socio-economic rights.

Finally, the state must as a matter of priority include human rights in our educational curriculum where corruption should be made a subject of study so that children will be able to know what is required of them as citizen from day one. When people are taught the negative impact of corruption from the primary level, it becomes part of them. For example, a policeman who studied human rights from day one will not abuse a suspect before sending him to the police station.

Conclusion
Undoubtedly, corruption remains the most daunting challenge to good governance, sustainable economic growth, peace, stability and social development. Corruption is a universal problem offending a universal value human rights. Corruption in its self is a violation of human rights. Preventing corruption, therefore, plays a great role in the realization of human rights. This is made by acknowledging that human rights can play a preventive role in corruption; and reducing the incidents of corruption will be a great leap forward for the enforcement of human rights.

Such understanding opens the door to the existing human rights mechanisms on which to base further action against corruption, since corruption is a violation of human rights. Human rights monitoring mechanisms such as international and regional human rights commissions and courts, UN complaint mechanisms or national human rights systems will be useful to remedy corrupt practices. This brings the anti-corruption and human rights activists together for the fight against corruption and violations of human rights.

Samuel Roberts Ahorklui
Human Rights and Anti Corruption Advocate.
Director of Research and Advocacy, IDEC.
Email: [email protected]

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