24. Integrity in free time is relevant to integrity on the job
One reason why the private behavior of SPs is important in office is that this offers insight into their true nature and hence the way they do their jobs. Furthermore, SPs hold their position even in private. It is therefore important that they view their private behavior from the perspective of their job and ensure that it is compatible. SPs may well have a right to privacy, but the greater the significance of integrity for their job, the less that right counts.
When it comes to accusations of a lack of integrity, another much-used defense tactic is to dismiss the problem as a private matter, based on the assumption that it is no one else’s business what an SP does in private (with an appeal to protection of privacy) and that it is irrelevant (because private and public roles are separate). This was François Hollande’s response during a press conference to a question about his alleged extramarital affair: “I have one principle: private matters should be dealt with privately.”121 However, this principle does not apply in all cases. SPs have had to step down due to private behavior, such as extramarital affairs, tax evasion, large debts, driving offences, domestic or public violence, illegal possession of weapons, discriminatory remarks, and possession of child pornography. It is therefore worth asking why and when private behavior is relevant for a position and to what extent SPs have a right to a private life.
One of the reasons why SPs’ private lives are relevant from the perspective of integrity is that they offer a better insight into their true nature than when they are on duty. In private time people are able to be themselves (this is really the definition and value of private time), revealing more clearly who they are as people. There are less spotlights or protocols, and less social control. In the absence of duties, it becomes clear what people want for themselves. This true nature is important because the assumption is that how a person behaves in private says something, possibly a great deal, about the person’s character, impacting the way they behave at work. This may not necessarily be the case, but the opposite possibility cannot be eliminated either. Those who hit their life partners may not necessarily hit others while working as SPs. However, the more people hit their partners, the more they appear to lack self-control and respect for the physical integrity of others, which may also affect the way they work, because it forms part of their character. After all, an SP is not a completely different person in private from in public. If that were the case, there would be no connection, no integrity, between the person in office and in private.
Another reason why private behavior is important for the job, is that SPs still hold their positions even in private. SPs generally do not have a job with clearly delimited working hours; work and private life run together. Even if they could be strictly divided, they are still SPs in private. They represent not only what they stand for as SPs, but also their parties, organizations, or the areas of work. Others will see it this way, in any case, as someone who runs into their local mayor on vacation, for example, does not see the mayor as a random individual but as the mayor. For this reason, behavior lacking integrity in free time can damage an SP’s integrity. A Chinese party official was discredited when he lost his temper at an airport after he and his family missed a flight. An online video shows him causing havoc, smashing computers at the gate and throwing telephones. Although this occurred in his free time, he was suspended from the party because his integrity as an SP had been damaged. It also damaged the integrity of the party because at the time the party leader was working hard to combat corruption and misconduct.122
It is therefore important as an SP to view one’s own private behavior from the perspective of one’s position, and not to engage in private behavior that damages the integrity of office. Not every misdemeanor, down to minor traffic offences, will be relevant (because, as discussed above, SPs are not expected to be moral superheroes). However, the latitude for transgression for SPs acting as private individuals is narrower than that of ordinary citizens. The greater the power and public character of the position the narrower that latitude. Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern was discredited when it emerged that he had underreported his income to the treasury, and a German minister of development for not paying import duty for a carpet he had bought during a business trip.123 Both were discredited because of the high positions they held. The space for transgression becomes narrower the more the transgression is related to the virtues and authority demanded