When reading through the Whistleblower Act, I asked these questions: What does TSP do when someone flat out lies behind their anonymity? Does the claimant still get legal protections if they maliciously cause damage to someone’s reputation? If you simply had incorrect details but correct concerns, could you get in trouble for defamation?
These questions may easily be determined by a court after a report, yet may prove daunting/confusing to someone filing a claim. In order to prevent both confusion and abuse of this act, I wrote an additional definition of “good faith” versus “bad faith” reporting, hopefully strengthening the act’s proper use. Thus, I propose the following amendment of Article 1 of the Whistleblower Protection Act to the Assembly:
I would echo the Prime Ministers’ suggestion to remove the quotations around good/bad faith.
Further, I think it would be beneficial to remove “malicious or defamatory intent” from the amendment and leave bad faith as a standalone line. My rationale is that we can allow the Courts to interpret what bad faith means in that scenario, without being potentially hamstrung by bad faith only being able to mean “malicious or defamatory intent.”
Overall, I must say that I am very supportive of the proposal.
I have edited the amendment to go along with the PM’s suggestions. I have kept the use of malicious along with bad faith, as I wanted this act to be defined more clearly for whistleblowers. I did, however, remove defamatory in order to keep it away from just being seen as a defamatory clause/issue.
If I see more people in support of removing the use of malicious, so the act can be more for court interpretation, I will omit it.
My way of putting “good faith” is akin to the term “in public interest.”
It’s less about any of the information reported as correct or incorrect, it’s more about the reporter’s goal of questioning/being concerned with an individual’s/group’s actions.
Let’s say: Are they doing something wrong/incorrect, and how could that wrongdoing be disadvantageous for an institution (such as TSP and its citizens, or public interest). Then, with the interest of the public in mind, the protections provided by this act allow for this safe questioning environment.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that whistleblowing can be altruistic in nature, but if there is genuine concern (as opposed to fabricated concern) of an entity’s actions, then the public’s interests are protected.
Hope that cleared up some of my perspective, and I encourage other legislators to share their views.