Peeling the Slices of Corruption: Insights into Violations of Professional Boundaries
By Emmanuel Dolo, Ph. D.
The
Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
January 4, 2007
As the Liberian government is seeking to enact new public policies to address bureaucratic corruption, there is one important topic that has not featured heavily in the public conversations about this subject. It is dual relationships and the associated violation of professional boundaries. Dual relationship occurs when a professional engages in an overlapping or multiple relationships with their client. For example, if a doctor engages in a sexual relationship with their patient; a teacher with their student; and a tax collector becomes the business partner of a firm owner whom he/she is responsible to collect tax from in their role as a civil servant.
Dual relationships can occur “before, during or after” the existing professional relationship. Violators often argue that their involvement with the client is solely to the benefit of the client, and they are not accruing any personal benefit from the relationship. However, the exploitative nature of dual relationships; the fact that it weakens or compromises professional judgment; and eventually undermines ethical principles embedded in professional codes of conduct, provides reasons to be concerned that it is a channel for fueling corruption.
Linking Dual Relationship and Corruption
Dual relationships violate professional boundaries,
and provide pathways through which bureaucratic corruption
and graft can occur. In the absence of licensing and
regulatory boards or professional associations that
can discipline offenders of ethical norms or organizational
codes of ethics, it is difficult to curb the incentives
for dual relationships and violations of professional
boundaries. Essentially, the government cannot administer
comprehensive corruption reform, if the issue of dual
relationships and violations of professional boundaries
are not integral parts of its strategy. How would it
sanction offenders? What infrastructure exists that
can facilitate inquiry into ethical lapses and violations?
If malpractice or negligence is determined through the
courts, professionals lack insurance coverage to mitigate
the harm caused or expenses incurred by the client.
A few Liberians would argue that relationships that compromise professional judgment are not the norm in our society. But unfortunately, when we begin to discuss corruption, the emphasis is often placed on money or property changing hands. Personal relationships between supervisor and supervisee are also common in our society. We often neglect the tendency it has to jeopardize service delivery or undermine an employee’s capacity to deliver optimal professional outcomes.
Under the rubric of dual relationships, one can include the misuse of power, which is also a condition embedded in our society. Many professionals have been known to often blame the victim or we have witnessed an enormous amount of institutional denial of responsibility for the actions of their employees. Given that our judicial institutions are elite-based, many victims, including vulnerable populations like children, women, and elderly people often face difficulties initiating legal action when they are violated. Ethical complaints are nonexistent in many professions because the infrastructure for such a process is nonexistent. In a society where illiteracy is so high, it is also not surprising that many victims do not come forward because they are ill-informed about how to proceed with complaints. There are others who live in cultural settings where violations of many kinds, including abuse and neglect of children and related violations have been construed as culturally acceptable.
In therapeutic or psychosocial relationships, a burgeoning field in Liberian society, one can see how it would be easy for vulnerable people to be manipulated into believing that certain actions by professionals are acceptable. Blackmail may also be possible, where clients initiate relationships and later use them for exploitative purposes. Nonetheless, the burden of proof falls on professionals to draw the line of demarcation. This is because in dual relationships, it is the influence that the professional has over the client, and the client’s vulnerability that serve as measures of ethical or legal breach of conduct.
Exchange of Goods and Services between Professional
and Client
There are many instances in which professionals exchange
goods for services with a client, and in so doing, violate
professional and even legal boundaries. Anytime goods
and/or services exchange hands, there is ample risk
for exploiting the client or the person with lesser
amount of power. The potential to harm a client has
to be a standard for gauging if there is a need for
the professional to resist being lured into any conduct
that would warrant investigations for ethical breach.
Breach of Client Confidence
Another area in which there has been tremendous violation
is in protecting the client’s confidence. It is
easy to assert that in the maturation of our institutions
and professional practices, we have yet to grow in how
to protect confidential information that clients provide
to professionals. The professional-client relationship
is one that leads clients to open themselves up to their
caregiver. When clients reveal important information
to a professional, including healthcare providers, accountants,
bankers, etc, sharing such information with a person
who does not have the client’s permission to receive
that information is no less than stealing their assets.
Informational assets are just as crucial to the day-to-day
functioning of a people as material or monetary assets.
Failure to Pay Attention to Shifts in Relationships
I believe that once a professional relationship acquires
a second relational component, the rules that define
the roles are then blurred and thus easy to violate.
Individuals cannot always pay attention to such shifts
in their relationships. That is why it is so critical
that licensing and regulatory bodies be established
alongside professional associations like the Press Union
of Liberia, the Liberian Medical Association, etc to
serve as independent brokers of professional conduct.
Perhaps, the government is aware that the potential
exists for its good intentions to be reasons for suspicion
since the past governments have served both as the prosecutor
and the judge in these kinds of cases.
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