The Legislative Yuan yesterday passed amendments to the Civil Service Retirement Act (公務人員退休法) that would deprive corrupt civil servants of the right to pensions or recall those already paid.
The amended law stipulates that the applications for pensions and severance pay made by civil servants who have been sentenced to imprisonment at the first instance court for contravening the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) or committing “offenses of malfeasance in office” defined by the Criminal Code (刑法), subjected to disciplinary punishment or referred to the Control Yuan for examination are not to be accepted.
Those who have been sentenced only after they have retired, been laid off or left office for breaking the laws during the time when they were in office and have been sentenced to death, life imprisonment or a minimum of seven years in prison are to be deprived of the right to pensions and the pensions already paid are to be recalled, according to the amended act.
Pensions for those who have been sentenced to between three and seven years in prison would be slashed by 50 percent; those sentenced to more than two years, but less than three years, 30 percent; and more than a year, but less than two years, 20 percent.
The amendment has been dubbed “the Yeh Shih-wen (葉世文) clause” as Yeh, the former Taoyuan county deputy commissioner, was sentenced to 21 years in prison by the court of second instance at the end of last year for receiving bribes in various construction projects, and that he was still entitled to civil service pensions met with public outrage.
The Supreme Court issued the final verdict on one of the four cases involving Yeh on Thursday, sentencing him to a seven-year jail term.
As the amendments passed by the legislature yesterday are not retroactive, Yeh would not be subjected to the new punishments, but he is charged with corruption in more than one case and would be placed under the remit of the amended act if the final verdicts on other cases are issued after the promulgation of the amendments, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wellington Koo (顧立雄) said.
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