Just for the record, in environments where devs have to get their changes validated in a way or another (i.e. get it past the test team, release to prod etc.), they will get a resounding NO, if they try to change some code just for the sake of it (even if it's called "refactoring") or things they can't argue to be valuable (depending on where you are, fixing a minor bug might not be a good enough reason for changes).

There's no double standards, basically anyone has to justify spending other people's time.