The case in Krevedia, where the mayor’s son manages his companies with contracts worth millions of lei with other pesedist municipalities in the country or manages contracts with hospitals and schools in the city run by his father, shows the complete lack of integrity when elected officials smell money. But this is a custom that was practiced hundreds of years ago.

​The attempt to form a modern state administration in Wallachia revolved around the idea of ​​legal incompatibility between public office and activities in private life, activities that governors believed could create opportunities for abuse of office, a recently published study shows.

More precisely, it is about trade. There were a number of provisions aimed at separating white-collar workers from commercial occupations. Like most reforms related to institutional life, they arose during the period of Russian occupation and are part of its general efforts to instill a model of good governance in local administration.

Let us recall the ban of 1832 by governor Pavel Kiselyov on local officials concluding commercial contracts with state institutions.

In 1835, Prince Alexandrou Dimitrie Ghika ordered that all officials subordinate to the prefects could not trade while exercising their powers. Attention was focused on the local leadership, which was most often in contact with the population. And against which many complaints were collected.

The original order was issued in May 1835 through the Department of the Interior (then the Home Office), reinstated in 1837 under very severe conditions, the department accusing the county leaders of doing too little to discipline their subordinates. But, as now, there was more talk than action.

Although several cases of violations of the law by local elders have been recorded, only one carries legal consequences, that is, he is fired on the spot)

Another, Marzeya from Medelnytsia, resigns himself so as not to harm those around him.

In Vilcha, many “sub-leaders” who violated the law were known, but they were not reported, because the elections were close and it was assumed that they would not be included in the lists after the end of their mandate.

However, in Mehedyntsy, the local elected official, who traded in wheat, remains without sanctions.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs only pretended to care about law enforcement officers

The department’s lack of a strategy is surprising, since it had few subordinate inspectors (at that time there were two institutions specializing in administrative control. The first, “Public Control”, conducted scheduled inspections in all institutions. The second was a corps of “officials”). ” was directly subordinated to the head of the Department of Internal Affairs, was used especially in extraordinary circumstances, such as a disciplinary investigation. In 1837, there were 10 such inspectors, who, apparently, are not called.

Looking at how each local government responded, it can be said that the effective application of the law, where it was done, depended on random circumstances, on the discipline of individual officials, or on the availability of certain information circulating at the local level.

Yes, some local authorities report specific facts of violations of the law, others deny their existence, but there are no specific investigative actions.

Another result is the tension between center and territory. We are witnessing a typical episode where the Department of External Affairs wants to improve, issues vague instructions, then reprimands processors for not taking action. In turn, they defend themselves, either by denying accusations of idleness, or by referring to objective reasons for it. Mehedinka and Ilfov even suggest a lack of realism in the statement of the Ministry of Internal Affairs regarding the proof that some official trades when he does it unofficially (on behalf of others) and secretly.

The bureaucratic explanation of the failure of the reform can be transferred to the level of customs and mentality. The picture that emerges from this episode is, of course, depressing, but it would be a mistake to think that unauthorized violence in the workplace was universal, says the author of the study.

In a separate study, he showed that sanctions were indeed applied in cases of conflict of interests, but not so much for violation of this principle as for material losses or damage to the physical integrity of the victim.

In other words, in defining good or bad governance, as in governing abuses, we have competing norms. The first norm, which I have called generally accepted, considers abuse as an act that results in physical, tangible harm and mutilation.

The second, modern norm, structured around the idea of ​​impersonal management. For officials, more precisely, public property should be separated from private interests as much as possible. It is obvious that in this transitional period the generally accepted norm prevails over the modern one. We can best understand this if we look at the case in Mehedyntsy, where the Department of Internal Affairs orders the removal of a local elected official from office and an investigation into possible abuses against the villagers.

When it is determined that the only damage found was minimal and the injured party was a single shop owner, the department allows the driver’s assistant to be reinstated.

When the prince himself gives exemption from the law…

In contrast to the pressure exerted on the leaders by his own brother (Mykhailo Ghika, head of the Department of Internal Affairs), Prince Alexandru Dimitrie Ghika in writing (!) allows his close relative – who worked in the state apparatus – to be excluded from law enforcement agencies.

The fact that this is a Russian military man, Colonel Arnold Jacobson, could suggest that the prince, in turn, could be under pressure. Be that as it may, we find relevant the way in which the message was sent to the Department of Internal Affairs, finally relativizing the prince’s order.

So it was clear that in general those close to the prince were exempt from the rule, even though the order only applied to Arnold Jacobson’s case and only for a single army supply contract.

See the full study here: From Correspondence of the Wallachia Department of the Interior on Combating Conflicts of Interest (1835-1840)