SCANDALS in public life have brought faith in many of our institutions to a new low, according to a leading legal expert.
Douglas Mill, director of professional legal practice at Glasgow University school of law, spoke out ahead of a con-ference which will look at ethics in the modern world.
He said: "There is a feeling standards in the professions have never been higher and have never been more rigorously documented or policed and enforced, and yet every time I turn my radio on in the morning, it's one bit of ethical freefall after another –whether it's South Yorkshire police lying to miners or Liverpool fans, or chancellors of exchequer not paying train fares."
Mr Mill, a former chief executive of the Law Society, added: "There is this great ethical vacuum out there."
Mr Mill is organising a one-day ethics event at Glasgow University, which he hopes will attract attendees beyond the legal community. Speakers will include Harry Reid, former editor of The Herald, on media ethics in the wake of the Leveson inquiry, and Stewart Hamilton, professor emeritus of finance and accounting at IMD, the Lausanne-based business school, on failures in the banking and financial sector.
l The Ethics Colloquium is at Glasgow University on December 4. Tickets cost £110 or £65 for a half-day. To reserve, email Douglas.Mill@glasgow.ac.uk.
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