The Significance of Equality Principle to Officials in the Implementation of Public Affairs
Ming-Hua Tsai *
Abstract
According to the viewpoint of the new public service which was advocated by Robert B. Denhardt and Janet V. Denhardt, a primary focus of implementation is citizen engagement and community building.
When the public affairs including the discretion are exercised by officials, citizen engagement must be properly applied to prevent the right of citizen from being damaged. In order to protect the basic right of people, to maintain social justice, to pursue the maximum interests of community, to have a healthy democracy, to build a wealthy society and finally to achieve the long term peace, stability and prosperity of the nation, when an official carries out the community building which always relates to the benefit of the community and each citizen more or less, not only are citizen participation and supervision required, the insistence of the official on the principle of equality is also absolutely necessary.
Equality is the base of the citizen basic right. Equality itself is one of the most important basic right which is normally stipulated in the constitution. Actually equality is the essential ground of democracy and national power. In consideration of the importance of the equality principle as a key to the modern democratic country, this article would like to analyze and study the subject from four different perspectives: the ethics of the official, the discretion of the official, the stipulation of the law including the constitution and the factors of political affairs. And at the end several suggestions for "the law of administration neutrality for officials" and "the draft code of behavior for officials" were offered as the conclusion of this paper.
Keywords: new public service, citizen engagement (or participation), public interests, community building, equality principle
*Ph.D. Candidate, Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies, National Sun Yat-sen University