Fiduciary Duty: Simple Ethics Concept for Government Officials:

The English word "Fiduciary" comes from the Latin fides (faith) and fiducia (trust). (Wikipedia).

A fiduciary has engaged in a relationship with his/her client that includes a trust and obligation (duty) to act only in that client’s best interests – without gain or benefit to the fiduciary.

Under the US Governmental structure: We, the citizens of the USA, elect our government officials to act as fiduciaries on our behalf. This democratic election process is the ethical grounding for giving our leaders the power and authority to run our country. 

By virtue of being elected – and hence having our trust placed in him/her, he/she is obligated to use an ethic of duty and care on our behalf in all his/her official actions. Period.

Parts two and three of the fiduciary duty are that the fiduciary is prohibited from personally benefiting from his/her fiduciary position. 

Further, the fiduciary is obligated to keep him/herself consciously free of any conflicts of interest.

This means that whether a citizen voted for the official or not – once in office, the official must equally consider all citizens and the country as a whole when choosing to write or vote on any legislation. Any special interest group should be ignored by the fiduciary, who must focus upon the entirety for the greater social good.

Lobbying, for example, seems to violate this concept. Lobbying by definition is an organized attempt to receive special notice for a group, not the whole. The same with specific campaign contributions, etc. These kinds of activities create the very conflicts of interest our fiduciary representatives must avoid at all times.

All the complex ethics legislations that have been ratified by our fiduciary leaders could be vastly simplified if only they were based upon the concept of Fiduciary Duty. Short, simple, understandable by all.

“Power has only one duty -- to secure the social welfare of the People.” Benjamin Disraeli

© 2009 All Rights Reserved, Kira X. Goettling, Ethical Thinking Harbors Its Creative Solutions ^™

 

Comments

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