Every government disciplines and sanctions illegal conduct and breach of official duties by civil servants. Recently, a presidential candidate was accused of misappropriating funds and funneling them through the accounts of his son, sister-in-law, nephew and secretary.
Many issues concerning civil, criminal and administrative liabilities await the outcome of investigations. I will not comment on the issues of evidence and law. However, the candi-date's refusal to answer the sum-mons of the Control Yuan on the grounds that he is no longer a civil servant is certainly a subject worthy of closer consideration.
Civil servants can be disciplined under the Law on Discipline of Public Functionaries (
The first exception is if the conduct in question has already been acted upon by the Committee on the Discipline of Public Functionaries. The second circumstance is if a declaration has been made to strip the person in question of his or her civic rights. The third is if more than 10 years have elapsed since the conduct in question ended.
In other words, even if a person is no longer a public functionary or civil servant, the statute of limitations remains 10 years from the end of the allegedly illegal conduct. Within this period, the Control Yuan may still conduct an investigation.
In addition, Article 90 of the ROC Constitution mandates that "The Control Yuan shall be the highest control organ of the State and shall exercise the powers of consent, impeachment, censure and auditing." Article 28 of the Control Law provides that "the investigator may request the local government, local court or other agencies concerned to provide assistance" and also authorizes the investigator to request the assistance of police.
A guideline on investigations by the Control Yuan states that if investigators run into "resis-tance" or if the person(s) being questioned deliberately conceal truth or refuse to answer truthfully, the investigators may propose an impeachment or censure of the person. In other words, the investigators may still proceed with the investigation and the presidential candidate in question is still obligated to accept the summons.
If the case in question involves tax evasion, the investigators may ask tax collection agencies to take measures prescribed under the Tax Collection Law, Article 31 of which provides for investigation of suspected tax evasion by petitioning for a search warrant to be executed in the company of the police. Led-gers, documents and other evidence gathered shall be be tuned over to the tax collection agency.
If the case involves the issue of asset disclosure by civil servants, then the Public Functionary Assets Disclosure Law applies. Article 11 of that law mandates that, if a public functionary knowingly fails to disclose personal assets, a fine between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000 shall be levied.
The present case involves many issues to which the Control Law and Law on the Discipline of Public Functionaries are relevant. The government agency responsible for investigation is naturally obligated to look into the matter.
It is probably better for all the parties to cooperate with any summons for questioning. Since all the events in question took place while the said presidential candidate was a civil servant, the Control Yuan's summons is legitimate.
If he would comply with the summons and offer an explanation, he would be behaving in a manner consistent with his self-proclaimed image of a law-abiding citizen, as well as providing a good example to all other civil servants.
Wu Kuang-ming is a law professor at National Chunghsing University.
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