Kaja Kallas: No support for ethics code in Estonian Reform Party board

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Photo: Toomas Huik

 The quest to set out an ethics code for members of the Estonian parliament has no support in the board of the Reform Party, Kaja Kallas, one of the champions of the ethics code, told Postimees.

"Indeed ... I do not see very many supporters of ethics code in the board ... One's mixing up good manners and politeness with professional ethics," Kallas said.

At the Reform Party convention on Saturday, Jaanus Tamkivi, chief of Reform's parliamentary group and member of the party's board, expressed criticism of the planned ethics code, saying that ethics cannot be introduced by order. "How many of us have a slogan on the wall at home telling oneself to behave, to be polite," he said.

Kallas said that a large number of professions in Estonia had committed themselves to an ethics code.

"Considering that the majority of people are doing a job that could be covered by an ethics code, why are members of parliament so special that that they do not need an ethics code? If we do not need to write these norms on the wall and everything's so self-evident, it should be all the more easy to make an agreement," said Kallas, who was elected to the board of the Reform Party with a bigger number of votes than anybody else of the board's 14 members on Saturday.

The Riigikogu started work on an ethics code last summer. The work group tasked with drafting the document is led by Kaja Kallas and includes Social Democrat Andres Anvelt, Center Party's Kadri Simson, Pro Patria and Res Publica Union's Mart Nutt and MP Kalle Laanet from the group of Democrats as members.

The first version of the ethics code tabled in November drew extensive criticism from MPs and a decision was made to rewrite it.

Establishing an efficient mechanism of supervision and sanction for members of parliament was one of the recommendations made by GRECO (Group of States Against Corruption) in its findings concerning Estonia.

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