Department of Government Ethics

On October 31st, 2003, the United Nations General Assembly passed the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which, composing of 71 articles divided into 8 chapters, started to take effect on December 14th, 2005 and had 175 members. The purpose of UNCAC is to act as a guideline and provide anti-corruption laws and policies. The content of UNCAC includes preventive measures and conviction of corruptive behaviors and law enforcement, international cooperation, and recovering of unlawful assets. In addition to ensuring the implementation mechanism, UNCAC encourages countries around the globe to focus on anti-corruption issues.

In order to promote the anti-corruption regulations and policies that UNCAC intends to achieve, the Executive Yuan wants to legalize UNCAC like formulating an act, giving UNCAC immediate legal power within Taiwan. Two cases affected by UNCAC are the collection of commission by workers of a famous company and the chain effect of food poisoning incident, attracting public attention on management issues of private sectors. An example of how UNCAC influences these two cases is its Article 21 "Bribery in the private sector" that "Each State Party shall consider adopting such legislative measure…the promise, offering, or giving, directly or indirectly, of an undue advantage to any person…" as criminal offenses, strengthening regulations on private sector. Another example is Article 12 "Private Sector", which states that "Each State Party shall take measures, in accordance with the fundamental principles of its domestic law, to prevent corruption involving the private sector, enhance accounting and auditing standards in the private sector and, where appropriate, provide effective, proportionate and dissuasive civil, administrative or criminal penalties for failure to comply with such measures." Therefore, passing the UNCAC Act has an positive effect on corruption-combating criminal policy.

After UNCAC is legalized as an act, any regulations or administrative measures that are in conflict with UNCAC Act shall be formulated, amended, or repealed within 3 years. Thus, governmental departments at all levels shall reflect upon their own regulations and if there were any conflicts they should make corrections or improvements. For example, in order to effectively recover unlawful income and solve international corruption, UNCAC dedicates one chapter to "International Cooperation", strengthening retrieve of overseas income earned from corruption and cooperative extradition of related criminals among State Parties. To comply with this chapter, Ministry of Justice (MOJ) drafted "Law of International Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Justice" and amended "Extradition Law" to build a more solid foundation of international mutual assistance in criminal justice. Moreover, MOJ can restore illegal money more effectively and timely and help the R.O.C extradite criminals. On the other hand, government should regularly prepare anti-corruption reports, which include analysis of corruptive environments, risks, and trends and evaluation of many anti-corruption measures, informing the public of the current state of corruption level.

The Agency Against Corruption, Ministry of Justice (AAC) will carry out anti-corruption measures according to UNCAC and communicate thoroughly with all levels of government, forcibly executing the legal structure framed by UNCAC.

Source of Original Article (in Chinese):

Source of UNCAC (in English): http://www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNCAC/Publications/Convention/08-50026_E.pdf