The unethical bureaucrat and the blind automaton
For whatever reason, whether it be the professional malaise, political vengeance, or personal corruption, the unethical bureaucrat ends up violating the purpose for which they were put there in the first place. The ways by which they can fail to comply with their duty are so numerous that listing them would consist of an endless and futile exercise: the stolen identity number, the revelation of personal information, the natural transaction that was never completed, or the law that was 'miraculously' altered at the last minute. In the end, their final effect is the same. The unethical bureaucrat ends up 'hemorrhaging' the institutions to which they belong, in the process damaging the social functions and destroying the bases of the ordered society. Those affected can include the very large or the very small, but the general impact is the same. While the individual bureaucrat might act in the belief that they win a particular 'fight' at hand, they loose sight of the fact that, upon degrading the institution they are a part of, they force those affected to resort to extra-ordinary mechanisms. In the exchange, the fabric of society is gradually undermined, possibly throwing it into the throes of its undoing.
This is not to suggest that the "bureaucrat", or any person with a position of confidence or institutional decision-making, should merely become a blind automaton. This opposite extreme--where the individual blindly obeys all orders without any moral consideration of higher principles or the general good--would likewise lead a society into the throes of its undoing, as clearly demonstrated in Hitlerian Germany. Individuals had lost all moral autonomy, to such an extent that events were pushed to inconceivable ends, too horrific to mention. Ultimately, the individual is a moral agent with a choice. The violation of professional conduct or social function should, generally speaking, occur only in the rarest of instances.
The unethical bureaucrat and the blind automaton are, ultimately, the extreme ends of a social pendulum.