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Feasibility Study on Legislation of Administrative Neutrality Act / Chiang Yin-shi

As the date for our presidential election - March 20, 2004 - is approaching, many people concern with whether the ruling party will employ political resources for support of election and cause administrative bias. Therefore, the issue of civil service administrative neutrality is once again emerging and attracts the public attention. In retrospect, the Examination Yuan drew up a "Draft of Civil Service Administrative Neutrality Act" and submitted it to the Legislative Yuan for review on December 30, 1994. There were as many as four versions of such act proposed by legislators at the same time, evidencing the high esteem given by the ruling and opposition parties to the administrative neutrality. Unfortunately, though the review of the said Act was completed by the Organic Laws and Statutes Committee of the Legislative Yuan through repeated reviews, entitling the Act as "Draft of Political Neutrality Act", however, the procedures of legislation were never completed due to no consensus to be reached from the reconciliation of the ruling and opposition parties. Eventually, no more review was carried on to the Act on the ground of "no carry forward upon expiry of the session". It was indeed a pity. With the party rotation, the Democratic Progressive Party came into power for the first time and has had the Examination Yuan review once again the feasibility of legislation of such Act. After the Ministry of Civil Service has held several meetings for discussions, the Act was submitted to and resolved by the Examination Yuan Council on May 22, 2003; however, it has not been submitted to the Legislative Yuan yet. This paper aims to study how to establish the legal system for administrative neutrality. In view that our party politics is now in an embryonic shape, there is indeed a need to sustain a neutral civil service system in order to have fair competition between political parties and facilitate the national growth and prosperity. However, in consideration of the specialty of Chinese traditional culture, no other way can do at present stage to achieve the goal of civil service neutrality than lawmaking. To establish a legal system for civil service neutrality is actually an imperative job. Therefore, conclusions and suggestions as a result of this research are provided as follows for reference of various circles in research and of legislators in future review of bills:
1. It is necessary and feasible to legislate for administrative neutrality;
2. The scope of practice of administrative neutrality shall be expanded and distinguished;
3. The scope of limitation on political activities on account of administrative neutrality should be explicit and practicable;
4. Administrative neutrality regulations may adopt criminal punishment so as to produce the effect of deterrence.

The legislation of administrative neutrality regulations, as a major work in political reform that greatly concerns the fair competition in our party politics and the stability of civil service system, should be completed as soon as possible. However, as a proverb saying "no work can be done only by means of law", the most important thing is that the leaders of each party should be commonly forward-looking and broad-minded and give major consideration to the long-range program and long term peace of our nation so that administrative neutrality can be successfully carried out. Otherwise, if a ruling party would employ administrative resources to carry an unfair competition, how could it be interfered simply by law? Thus, "self discipline" is more important than "regulation by law", which actually is a sign of progress of a state and of enhancement of people's quality. Also, it is a significant milestone for our country to stride forward to a developed country, and thus such matter deserves the efforts of our people.