Professional Ethics and Codes of Conduct
Professional Ethics and Codes of Conduct
Professional ethics are principles that govern the behavior of a person or group in a
business environment. Like values, professional ethics provide rules on how a person
should act towards other people and institutions in such an environment.
NOTE Unlike values, professional ethics are often codified as a set of rules, which a
particular group of people use. This means that all those in a particular group will use
the same professional ethics, even though their values may be unique to each person.
The Code is an example of a codified set of professional ethics for those who choose to
enter the immigration advice profession.
Ethical principles
Ethical principles underpin all professional codes of conduct. Ethical principles may
differ depending on the profession; for example, professional ethics that relate to
medical practitioners will differ from those that relate to lawyers or real estate agents.
However. there are some universal ethical principles that apply across all professions
including:
Honesty
Trustworthiness
Loyalty
Respect for others
Adherence to the law
Doing good and avoiding harm to others
Accountability.
Codes of conduct
Professional codes of conduct draw on these professional ethical principles as the basis
for prescribing required standards of behavior for members of a profession. They also
seek to set out the expectations that the profession and society have of its members.
The intention of codes of conduct is to provide guidelines for the minimum standard of
appropriate behavior in a professional context. Codes of conduct sit alongside the
general law of the land and the personal values of members of the profession.
NOTE
The primary value of a professional code of conduct is not as a checklist for disciplining
non-conforming members, although breaches of a code of conduct usually do carry a
professional disciplinary consequence.
Rather, its primary value is to act as a prompt sheet for the promotion of ethical
decision-making by members of that profession.
Professional codes of conduct provide benefits to:
the public, as they build confidence in the profession ‘s trustworthiness
clients, as they provide greater transparency and certainty about how their affairs
will be handled
members of the profession, as they provide a supporting framework for resisting
pressure to act inappropriately, and for making acceptable decisions in what may
be 'grey areas’
the profession as a whole, as they provide a common understanding of
acceptable practice which bonds collegiality and allows for fairer disciplinary
procedures
others dealing with the profession, as the profession will be seen as more reliable
and easier to deal with.