Unethical public officials should be judged on ethics of their conduct rather than the legality of their actions. Speaking at the University of KwaZulu-Natal school of law's conversation on South Africa's values and morals, attorney David Hulme suggested the government follow the legal profession, which holds its members accountable based on ethical considerations, and would still strike an unethical lawyer from the roll even if his conduct was legal."We should have ethical codes that are far more general and far less legalistic. Codes that depend on honour."After all, MPs are known as the honourable so and so. Perhaps they should be held to that," he said.Hulme said the ministerial handbook put legality before honourable conduct."The kind of thing it can lead to is this type of statement from late minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs Sicelo Shiceka, when he asked: 'What is wrong with that? Every other hotel was full'."Because the code of ethics didn't spell out how much you could spend on a hotel, it merely said you could stay in a hotel. That's the problem of applying legality and legalism to codes of ethics," Hulme said.He said if honour was added to the code, Shiceka's R55793 one-night stay at the One and Only Hotel in Cape Town would have been seen as dishonourable and wasteful expenditure."You cannot make people good with the law. You cannot legislate morality," the lawyer said.Academics are meeting at Howard College in Durban to develop a discussion document on South Africa's past, present and future moral compass that will be shared with the broader university community for commentary before it is released to the public...