Note especially Item 4 in the above link.

All this points to another and related tension. This is the tension between the ideology view and the concept of the rule of law, the centrepiece of a liberal legal order. At their most basic, the terms the rule of law, due process, procedural justice, legal formality, procedural rationality, justice as regularity, all refer to the idea that law should meet certain procedural requirements so that the individual is enabled to obey it. These requirements center on the principle that the law be general, that it take the form of rules. Law by definition should be directed to more than a particular situation or individual; the rule of law also requires that law be relatively certain, clearly expressed, open, prospective and adequately publicised.

Jensen Comment
The question is where do ethics codes fit in between law's rules and ideology. Also at issue is how rule-like codes of ethics become become laws over time. Also at issue are sanctions. With rules of law there are procedural requirements for enforcing those rules. Ethics seems to fit more into a gray zone when rules of laws are not broken but morality standards (ideologies) have been violated.

An interesting aspect of this thread would be examples where laws are not broken but ethics codes are violated. For example I don't think there are statutes dictating that a supervisor cannot date or have sexual relations with an employee being supervised. Many business firms and governmental agencies, however, consider this to be unethical and actually have rules against such behavior even if it is not illegal in the statutes.

There are no statutes to my knowledge that college instructors cannot campaign for particular political candidates in their classrooms. However, the AAUP and most colleges consider this a breach of ethics in the classroom. Instructors can and have been suspended for such political activism in classrooms. But more often than not the instructor is simply advised not to campaign in the classroom. Further actions are taken if the instructor repeatedly and egregiously ignores the advice.

The ideology in this case is that instructors should teach but not indoctrinate. Ethics codes become somewhat specific regarding what constitutes indoctrination. But the sanctions are often vague. Laws become even more specific what constitutes violation of law such as offering bribes or making physical threats. Such laws are enforceable to a point where the courts rather than the employer decides on the punishments. And the sentencing guidelines can be quite specific.

""Ten Commandments" for Today's CFO," by Anthony H. Catanach Jr., Grumpy Old Accountants, September 17, 2013 ---
 http://grumpyoldaccountants.com/blog/2013/9/14/ten-commandments-for-todays-cfos

• "Civility in Society is an Ethical Issue," by Steven Mintz, Ethics Sage, December 24, 2013 ---
  http://www.ethicssage.com/2013/12/civility-in-society-is-an-ethical-issue.html

  I recently read a piece by Ryan Ariel Simon on JWeekly.com on December 19 that addresses the atmosphere on the campus of San Francisco State University. Having taught there for ten years, I was particularly interested in Ryan’s take on the reaction of the Jewish students to an event on campus that deals with the Israeli-Palestinian debate. The issue of civility is front and center in the piece so I decided to blog about it. Civility is an element of ethical behavior because it encompasses treating others the way we want to be treated – with respect and tolerance.

  Ryan writes…”Over the past month there has been, under the surface, a debate over what is acceptable in our campus discourse at San Francisco State University when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This round of the debate was initiated when Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Initiative (AMED) along with the General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS) and other groups, held an event commemorating the establishment of a mural on Malcolm X Plaza honoring Palestinian American scholar Edward Said. Unfortunately, most of the debate has taken place online or outside of campus. This is an attempt to bring it home. The complaints for many in the Jewish community centered around the stencils distributed at the event stating, “My heroes have always killed colonizers,” allegedly followed by violent rhetoric directed toward Israelis by the GUPS president. While San Francisco Hillel worked to address our concerns soberly and measuredly, the debate swirled out of control when groups outside SFSU took it upon themselves to “protect” students without asking us why we were upset or what we needed for support. Charges of anti-Semitism and stifling academic freedom were thrown around, making our campus a battleground for hardliners fighting their own agendas. This is an attempt to bring civility and genuineness back to this debate.”

  My feeling is it doesn’t matter which side of the issue you come down on. Respectfulness is an ethical value and requires that we honestly and openly present both sides of an issue and one side should not demean the other. It does no good to incite those who hold a viewpoint different from our own. It doesn’t add qualitatively to the debate.

  Continued in article

Ex-IRS Ethics Office Lawyer Disbarred For … Ethics Violations ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/04/ex-irs-ethics-office-lawyer-disbarred-for-.html

Jensen Comment
Her punishment sounds serious until you examine the IRS track record for hiring back fired employees.

"Report: IRS hiring back problem employees," by Kevin G. Hall, McClatcheyDC, February 5, 2015 ---
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2015/02/05/255697/report-irs-hiring-back-problem.html

More than one in 10 former employees rehired by the Internal Revenue Services had left the agency with performance and conduct issues, a special inspector general’s report concluded.

The report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration was actually released last Dec. 30 but its results were divulged Thursday by the new chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Utah Republican Orrin Hatch.

The IG’s report found that of the 7,000-plus former IRS employees hired back between January 2010 and September 2013, 824 of them had prior employment disciplinary issues. Of those 824, the inspector general said 141 had a prior tax issue and five of them were determined to have willfully failed to file a tax return.

Continued in article

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm

The Parable of the Talents
SSRN, May 31, 2016
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2787452

Author

Stephen M. Bainbridge University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) - School of Law

Abstract

On its surface, Jesus’ Parable of the Talents is a simple story with four key plot elements: (1) A master is leaving on a long trip and entrusts substantial assets to three servants to manage during his absence. (2) Two of the servants invested the assets profitably, earning substantial returns, but a third servant — frightened of his master’s reputation as a hard taskmaster — put the money away for safekeeping and failed even to earn interest on it. (3) The master returns and demands an accounting from the servants. (4) The two servants who invested wisely were rewarded, but the servant who failed to do so is punished.

Neither the master nor any of the servants make any appeal to legal standards, but it seems improbable that there was no background set of rules against which the story plays out. To the legal mind, the Parable thus raises some interesting questions: What was the relationship between the master and the servant? What were the servants’ duties? How do the likely answers to those questions map to modern relations, such as those of principal and agent? Curiously, however, there are almost no detailed analyses of these questions in Anglo-American legal scholarship.

This project seeks to fill that gap.