16
An Overview of Good Governance
the norms more accessible to citizens. In addition to GALA, a Code for Good Public Governance has been published by the Netherlands Minister of Interior Affairs. The executive bodies of all public authorities adhere to this Code. The Code prescribes, for instance, how executive bodies and public servants should behave in their dealings with private citizens, businesses, and other public authorities.2 This is important because it increases trust in public authorities among the general public and private institutions, self-awareness and integrity within the authorities themselves, the professionalism and l’esprit de corps within the authorities, and transparency regarding the core duties. But this is not the only Code of Good Governance; each policy (sub) sector in the Netherlands has its own Code, so that today about twenty Codes of Good Governance can be found in the Netherlands. Here we begin to see the problem of the fragmentation of the norms of good governance.
2. Concept of Good Governance Good governance is not only about the proper use of the government’s powers in a transparent and participative way, it also requires a good and faithful exercise of power. In essence, it concerns the fulfilment of the three elementary tasks of government: to guarantee the security of persons and society; to manage an effective and accountable framework for the public sector; and to promote the economic and social aims of the country in accordance with the wishes of the population. A distinction is drawn between an institutional and a functional approach in the achievement of good governance. The institutional approach of good governance is related to, for example, a minister or a civil servant, administrative authorities, or the public prosecutor, each competent to fulfil a specific function. In the functional approach, the focus is on the fulfilment of a specific function. These functions depend on the tasks endowed to a specific institution. Within the functional approach, the licensing function and the supervision function are distinct from each other. The licensing function refers to legitimacy ex ante, whereas the supervision function refers to legitimacy ex post. The functional content can be split into good governance as part of public law and corporate governance as part of private law. Although these are not entirely separate, public law3 and private law have different tasks and functions and also different processes of legitimization. Whereas public competences must have a legal basis in constitutional law and should be legitimately exercised, the legitimacy of private actors’ exercising of authority is still somewhat diffuse. In the literature, attention is paid to the legitimacy of transnational private regulation, in which principles of good governance are recognizable.4 It should also be noted that the public and private use of principles of good governance mutually influence each other, and this contributes to the development of the substance of the principles of good governance. 2 Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations. Department of Public Administration and Democracy, The Netherlands Code for Good Public Governance, July 2009, 20522 | 3273–GMD32, available in English: <https://www.integriteitoverheid.nl/fileadmin/BIOS/data/Internationaal/ Netherlands_Code_for_Good_Public_Governance.pdf>. 3 Elliott and Feldman 2015, ch 1. 4 Curtin and Senden 2011, pp. 163–88; Kingsbury, Krisch, and Stewart 2005, pp. 15–62. In this article, attention is paid to procedural standards like participation and transparency and substantive standards such as proportionality, means-ends rationality, avoidance of unnecessarily restrictive means, and legitimate expectation. (pp. 37–41).
