10 Annual Report 2010 ADMINISTRATIVE PRACTICE IS ETHICS-BASED 150 years ago, good administrative practice was almost the only rule. It formed the basis of the administration’s relations with citizens. Gradually rules of law were added. In particularly important areas, good administrative practice was translated into legal principles and rules of law. However, good administrative practice still underlies the entire system of case processing rules that we know today. Where rules of law are inadequate or do not reach, good administrative practice still emerges and applies. Good administrative practice is ethics-based. In other words, it is based on some fundamental values in the view of human nature and society and it is reflected in a multitude of rules and patterns of behaviour between individuals and groups of people. This also explains why good administrative practice tends to cover everything from the most general to the most specific. It is good administrative practice to respect the citizen whose welfare depends to a greater or lesser extent on your decision as an independent and equal human being; this is ‘general’ ethics. However, it is also good administrative practice to introduce yourself to citizens by name or print your name under a hard-to-read signature in a letter to a citizen; this is ‘specific’ ethics, also called etiquette. OVERVIEW AND STRUCTURE It is not easy to get an overview of the existing rules and principles of good administrative practice. It is not a simple matter to recognise the connection between the following: public employees must not speak in a patronising or offensive way to a citizen, public employees must not receive gifts or other benefits of any value in connection with their work, case processing must not be protracted, grounds given for decisions must include comments on any views expressed by the citizens, the documents of a case must not be in a confused mess, an authority must to some extent provide information about for instance new rules impacting on citizens, etc. Some structure is necessary to form an overview of this apparent mishmash of rules and directions. Two categorisations are particularly useful for sorting the many rules. The first distinction is between standards associated with existing rules of law and those not connected with rules of law. For instance, sections 22-24 of the