Originally published in the Unashamedly Ethical newsletter, March 2025.
“I strive to commit to submit myself to just and ethical governing authorities.”
Of all ten commitments, this is the one people most often question.
“Submit” is an uncomfortable word. It can sound like blind obedience, or like an instruction to accept whatever those in power decide. In a country with our history, that discomfort is understandable.
But the commitment does not say “submit to authority”. It says “submit to just and ethical governing authorities”. Those qualifying words carry the whole meaning.
What we owe legitimate authority
Orderly societies depend on people accepting that legitimate authority applies to them too. That means obeying just laws, paying our taxes, respecting the decisions of courts and following fair rules at work even when they are inconvenient.
Our Constitution is founded on the supremacy of the Constitution and the rule of law. The rule of law only works if ordinary people choose to live by it, not only when it suits them, and not only when someone is watching.
It is easy to demand that leaders obey the law while treating our own small infringements as harmless. This commitment holds us to the same standard we expect of others.
What we do not owe
The same commitment also draws a line. Submission is owed to authority that is just and ethical, not to authority that is abusing its power.
South African labour law has long recognised this in the workplace. An employee is not obliged to obey an unlawful instruction. Refusing to falsify records, to discriminate or to break the law is not insubordination. It is integrity.
The same principle applies more widely. Respecting legitimate authority does not mean staying silent about wrongdoing, defending those who abuse public office or surrendering our conscience.
Accountability is part of submission
This is the part of the commitment that is most often missed.
In a constitutional democracy, holding authority to account is not rebellion. It is participation. We vote. We engage with our representatives. We use the courts, the Chapter 9 institutions, commissions of inquiry and the proper reporting channels when something is wrong. We raise concerns at work through the processes designed for that purpose.
Those are lawful, peaceful and persistent ways of insisting that authority remains just. Withdrawing from them in frustration does not weaken corrupt leadership. It leaves the field open to it.
Beyond government
This commitment reaches well beyond politics. We encounter authority at work, in schools, in churches, in community structures and in our families.
In each of these places, the same two questions apply. Is this authority being exercised justly? And am I respecting it where it is, and challenging it properly where it is not?
That balance is not always comfortable. But it is how ethical citizens help keep authority honest, and how ethical leaders earn the respect this commitment describes.
If you want to be part of a movement that respects just authority and holds all authority to account, make this commitment your own at unashamedlyethical.com/commitment.
Yours in ethics,
Ilene Power