Fending Off Interest Peddling by Reestablishing the Revolving Door Clause*
Yi-Kai Fan,** Chih-Chieh Lin***
Abstract
Good governance is the most important political goal in many countries around the world. In addition to passing the national exam to prove their knowledge and ability, civil servants shall uphold the integrity principle. Integrity means fighting corruption and avoiding conflicts of interests. Greater attention shall be paid to conflicts of interests after the resignation of civil servants, because it usually involves corruption and improper funneling. Illegal funneling is difficult to discover but its damage to public interests and national prestige is enormous. Therefore, we need to evaluate civil servants with a higher ethics standard.
Currently there are few literatures regarding funneling and the revolving door policy. These rare articles usually focus on the history of law-making, the right of work, or the introduction to other countries’ laws. Compared to traditional data on the subject, this paper tries to make a new and comprehensive analysis of the issue.
The author of this paper believes that the legislative purpose of the Article 14-1 of “Civil Servant Work Act” (Revolving Door Clause) is good; however, it is difficult for prosecutors and the justice system to enforce the law. Such legislation has triggered criticism. To amend this outdated law is therefore necessary. In fact, the Judicial Yuan Interpretation No.637 has indicated that the Act should be amended. Besides analyzing previous proposals for amendment, this article collects 9 cases which involve violations of the revolving door clause. This article summarizes the facts, issues, reasons, and contradictory opinions, and offers the author’s arguments. This article also compares foreign legislation and proposes a new legal model to handle the issue of funneling and to combat corruption and related crimes in Taiwan.
Keywords: employment restrictions after resignation of civil servants, conflicts of interests, revolving door
* Thanks for the valuable suggestions of the two distinguished reviewers.
** Agent, Agency Against Corruption, Ministry of Justice.
*** Associate Professor, Institute of Technology Law, National Chiao Tung University.
http://www.exam.gov.tw/public/Data/38221342271.pdf