The government should without delay send the draft whistle-blower protection act and other proposed measures to counter corruption to the legislature for deliberation in the upcoming session, the New Power Party (NPP) caucus said yesterday, citing mention of Taiwan in a newly released UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) report.
The report urges Taiwan to draft laws to protect whistle-blowers, establish a centralized registration system of substantial beneficiaries for companies and trusts, and criminalize bribery in the private sector, NPP Chairwoman Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) told a news conference in Taipei.
The report also says political contributions in Taiwan should be transparent and donation amounts be limited, she said.
Photo: Yang Cheng-yu, Taipei Times
“However, the draft whistle-blower protection act has yet to be approved by the Executive Yuan. The government is still studying legal person liability with regard to bribery, while an increasing number of politicians is involved in corruption scandals. We seriously question Premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) determination to fight corruption,” Chen said.
Su had pledged that he would not run in New Taipei City after having served two terms as Taipei County commissioner before it became a special municipality, Chen said.
However, he betrayed that pledge in 2010 when he ran for New Taipei City mayor, she added.
“Su should not think he could fool members of the [UNCAC] anti-corruption review committee, which wrote the report, the same way he fooled the gods,” Chen said, referring to his pledge. “The international community is watching.”
While whistle-blowers help expose scandals that would have otherwise remained secret, laws in Taiwan offer them no protection, NPP caucus whip Chiu Hsien-chih (邱顯智).
The committee highlighted the importance of whistle-blowers protection in the convention’s first and second reports, Chiu said.
The second report specified that Taiwan should implement legislation that offers full protection to whistle-blowers in the public and private sectors, Chiu said, adding that the draft act should adopt standards consistent with those of international organizations.
After receiving input from lawmakers and other government bodies, the Ministry of Justice’s Agency Against Corruption in February 2020 sent the draft act to the Executive Yuan for review, Chiu said, adding that the agency last year made the bill’s passage in the legislature its priority.
“Lawmakers across party lines have agreed that the draft whistle-blower protection act is necessary, and similar legislation has been enforced in other advanced countries,” Chiu said. “The premier just told members of the UN committee that the government is determined to fight corruption, but lawmakers have yet to see the draft act.”
National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University law professor Carol Lin (林志潔), who was involved in drafting the bill, said that the government might have difficulty disentangling some complicated issues addressed in the bill in a timely manner.
“Before the draft act is passed at the legislature, which could take some time, the government can still gradually build a whistle-blower protection system by requiring government agencies, and state-run or state-funded corporations to have such a mechanism in place,” Lin said.
The Financial Supervisory Commission requires financial institutions to make whistle-blower protection part of their internal audit systems, she said.
A whistle-blower protection system helps expose criminal activities and safeguards public interests in food safety, public safety and public health, Lin said, adding that the government should do its best to protect whistle-blower’s rights and reward the moral courage they show in difficult situations.
NPP Legislator Claire Wang (王婉諭) said that the party has proposed amendments to the Anti-Corruption Act (貪污治罪條例) that would criminalize certain lobbying activities and receiving certain gifts, adding that the proposal was based on the conclusions of a judicial reform conference in 2017.
While the ministry on multiple occasions in the past four years said that it aimed to tackle these two issues with amendments to the Criminal Code, it has yet to make any proposal, Wang said.
The second report says that Taiwan should address obstruction of justice and bolster measures to hold legal persons liable for bribery, Wang said.
“The government should not procrastinate on these bills year after year,” she said.
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