Civil Oversight
We often hear and use the term civil oversight. But do we really know what it means? And would we accept it if the oversight were being exercised over us — perhaps by civil society, or even by a single individual?
There is a growing debate about the future of representative democracy. Many of us feel that change is necessary, but putting that change into practice would challenge too many existing interests, and for the time being there is no clear alternative that would necessarily produce better results.
So, for lack of a better option, we continue along the familiar path.
As citizens, we naturally feel more comfortable when public administration and public services work properly. When we deal with a government office, a school or another public institution, we expect to feel that our concerns matter and that we are being treated as partners rather than simply as case numbers.
Yet there are many situations in which public organisations fail to put either our interests or the broader public interest first. Instead of being partners, citizens can become vulnerable participants in the relationship.
One might even describe this as a form of an “abusive state”.
Of course, a modern legal system cannot always deliver the outcome we would personally prefer. But there are situations in which it seems easier for an institution to follow the letter of the law than to look for the lawful options that would deal fairly with a citizen’s legitimate needs.
At the same time, some public organisations appear to have been captured by political patronage, while others have retreated behind the shield of the law into small ivory towers.
But a public institution does not exist for its own sake.
A state institution or public service provider should serve the public interest, not an abstract interest of the state.
This is where civil oversight can play an important role.
The standard response is almost immediate: important public institutions cannot be led by people who do not know the rules inside out. Public administration is a profession in its own right, and it can take decades to acquire the necessary expertise.
My answer is that the leader of a large organisation does not necessarily have to be the best technical expert in every area of its operation.
Lee Iacocca, for example, became one of the best-known leaders in the American automobile industry even though his greatest strengths were not rooted primarily in manufacturing technology, but in strategy, organisation and leadership. He did not need to be the leading expert in every technical field. His task was to find people who were, and to build a functioning organisation around them.
The same principle can apply to public institutions.
The Hungarian Parliament recently established a new office tasked with examining abuses involving public assets over the past decade and a half and, where possible, recovering assets that were unlawfully transferred. The new organisation has been given broad powers.
Its head, however, is neither a prosecutor, an investigator nor an auditor, but a political scientist.
From a professional perspective, this might raise questions at first sight. Yet this is precisely why I found the appointment worth considering.
The new head immediately became the target of attacks. We have become accustomed to seeing character assassination replace meaningful debate — not only in Hungary, but around the world, partly as a consequence of the unrestrained nature of social media.
I was not interested in the labels attached to the person, however. I wanted to understand the ideas behind the appointment, so I watched an interview with the new head.
A journalist’s job is, of course, to stir the waters, ask provocative questions and open up new perspectives.
The answers were more convincing than the surrounding political debate might have suggested.
The most important task, according to the interview, is to establish the organisation itself: selecting deputies with the appropriate professional knowledge and sufficient authority. One of the four deputy heads has already been elected by Parliament, with a specifically professional background.
The answers also made clear that one of the central aims is to ensure that such a sensitive organisation, subject to continuous public scrutiny, does not become a place for bureaucratic or legal overreach.
And this brings us back to civil oversight.
Civil oversight does not necessarily mean civil society organisations alone. It can also mean having a person at the head of a public institution who is capable of preserving his or her integrity — both inside and outside the organisation.
Such a leader must be able to prevent professional cliques from taking control of particular areas.
They must prevent political patronage from continually disrupting the internal workings of the organisation.
They must ensure that employees and managers are not primarily concerned with protecting themselves from the outside world, but with doing the work the institution was created to do.
And they must continuously examine whether the legal framework actually serves the public interest for which the organisation is responsible.
This is why I believe civil oversight deserves a greater role.
It should not be left solely to foundations or other organisations that can easily become dependent on those they are supposed to scrutinise. There is also a need for an independent pair of eyes — someone capable of seeing how the system works from within without automatically becoming part of it.
But this can only work if political leadership is also capable of restraint.
Politics should make decisions on professional grounds and then allow professionals to do their work. Its role is not to make every operational decision or to micromanage implementation.
Ultimately, genuine civil oversight is not about weakening the state.
Quite the opposite.
It can be a way of ensuring that the state actually does what it was created to do.
Serve the public interest.
By: Viktor Szentkiralyi