The Study On The Legislation Of The Property Declaration Of Public Official

Since the1990s, both at central and local level, the authorities of ourcountry have enacted a number of polices and documents on the propertydeclaration of public official. The local governments and differentdepartments have been practicing property declaration system for years.However, due to the limitations of the policies and documents as well asthe difficulties encountered in the implementation, the public in the face ofthe spread of corruption hope to accelerate the rate of progress oflegislation to establish and improve the property declaration system, thus tocontrol the spread of corruption. As a terminal anti-corruption mechanism,the value of the property declaration system has also been widelyrecognized by international organizations and major countries. The UnitedNations Convention against Corruption takes the public officials’ propertydeclaration system as a fundamental obligation of the member countries.Many major countries also establish a property declaration system of publicofficial through special property declaration legislation or comprehensiveanti-corruption legislation. The legislation of the property declaration ofpublic official has become a common choice of different countries insolving the problem of corruption in the era of transparent government.The study on the legislation of property declaration of public officialshould respond to the following problems at least:(1) How about thecurrent situation of corruption and the corrupt governance in China? What is the position of property declaration system in the corrupt governancecoordinate system? Is there any special value and significance of it to curbthe spread of the current corruption?(2) What kind of system does theproperty declaration like? How the system works and what kind of theoriescan support it? What is the relationship between those relevant laws, forexample constitutional law and administrative law, and it?(3) What are thehistorical origins of property declaration in China? What kind ofpredicaments do the existing norms encounter? Why do we needlegislations? Hence, what resistances and difficulties the legislation willface? Which should be given priority to, the legislation from the centralgovernment or current local trial? What are the relationship between theenacted central regulations and the future legislations? Should we restart alegislative strategy or continue with the historical tradition?(4) How tobalance the property declaration with the public official privacy protection?How to design the property opening system which is the core of propertydeclaration system? How to solve the problem of the retroactive effect ofthe legislation, and how to deal with the resistance after the publishing ofthe new legislation?(5) How to make it satisfy both the internationalstandards and the conditions in China? How to design the subject, range,classification, authority, procedure and legal responsibility system ofdeclaration?All above questions is what this dissertation attempts to answer. Thedissertation is divided into seven parts, namely the Introduction, fivechapters of main text and conclusion.Introduction is the opening of the dissertation. Firstly, this partintroduces the research background—corruption governance and theinstitutionalization of public service ethics; analysis the research situation which is prosperous in the number of articles but poor in terms of researchcontent and research methods; and then points out the significance of thisissue to the research and system construction of administrative law. Whatfollows is the description to the problem-centered research idea; finally,describes the research method of this dissertation in brief.Chapter one is entitled "the corruption governance in Context ofChina". Corruption governance is a systematic project. As a means ofcorruption governance, the property declaration of public officials mustfind its own position in the whole system of corruption governance. Onlybe placed in the overall context of China’s corruption governance, could thespecial value and significance of the property declaration system be moreclearly recognized. Therefore the first separate chapter, as a backgroundintroduction, focuses on the corruption problem and corruption governancein China. Firstly, this part outlines the status and characteristics ofcorruption in China, and then to explore the strategy and the plight of thecorruption in China. Then from the point of plight in bureaucracycorruption governance, the paper concludes that the property disclosure is akind of effective governance tool. At last, the corruption governance is asystematic system. The dissertation studies from six aspects, namelydemocracy, better organizations, institution building, anti-corruptioneducation, supervision network and reasonable salaries, to show thecorruption governance road towards a virtuous circle.The chapter two is entitled "the basic theory of the law of propertydeclaration of public official ". The theme is legislative research, whichfocuses on the study of the legislation system, legislative strategy andlegislative technology. However, an empirical legislative research alsoneed metaphysical basis of theoretical support and solid intellectual support from the basic theory. Starting from the distinctions between “publicofficial” and some related concepts, this part analyses the concept of publicofficial and property declaration of public official, then exploring thevalues and functions, especially focusing on the protective function of thesystem, pointing out that we should view the system through a rationalperspective. The chapter next explores the basis theory of the propertydeclaration system from four aspects, namely the citizens’ right to knowand transparent government, public participation and participatorydemocracy, alienation of power and supervision of power, the legalconstruction of public service ethics. Finally, as this issue is ainterdisciplinary topic of administrative law, constitutional law, criminallaw and other disciplines which bases on the legislation, this paper takesthe administrative Law as the basic point to study the relationships betweenthe law of public officials’ property declaration and any other subjects suchas administrative law, constitution law, criminal law, international law, civilservice law, information disclosure law and so on.Chapter three is entitled "the legislative model and strategy ofproperty declaration of public official ". The fundamental work oflegislation is to study the directive and macroscopic questions of legislation,such as the historical origins, the reality and the future legislative strategyof the system of property declaration. And this is the main task for thischapter. At the beginning, this part depicts the historical development of theproperty declaration system of public officials in China, introducesdifferent practices both on central and local levels and then focus on theproblems of the property declaration system and demonstrate the necessityof legislation for that. What follows is the legislative approach. It arguesthat the local trial approach should be criticized and shows the future outlook later. Then it studies the legislative strategy and criticizes the viewof some high-level government officials and scholars who don’t think ourcountry has established the system of property declaration of publicofficials and criticizes misconceptions between the property declaration lawand system which therefore invisibly increases the legislative resistance. Italso tries to re-examine the current legislative strategy and seek thetraditional continuity. Finally, this part focuses on the implement issuewhich the senior government and legislator care most and explore therational choice and specific practice in China context."The legislative considerations of the property declaration of publicofficial" is the title of chapter four. This chapter lies between "thelegislative model and strategy" of chapter three and "the legislativeconstruction" of chapter five. It discusses the relationship between theproperty declaration and privacy right at the beginning, and tries to achievea kind of substantive balance based on the public interest priority principle,the unity of rights and obligations principle and the proportionalityprinciple. Second, it discusses the most concerned issue of the society: theregime and construction of the property declaration system, exploring themode of some local and extraterritorial places, drawing a future picture forthat. Third, it discusses property declaration supporting systems andconfirms the value and significance of that. Finally, it studies on the name,system, basic principle and so on, trying to find the coordination andharmonization between form and content of the legislation.The fifth chapter is the core of this dissertation, which formed aroundthe relatively microscopic theme of "the legislative construction of theproperty declaration of public official". Firstly, this chapter studies on thename, system and basic principle of legislation, trying to find the coordination and harmonization between form and content of thelegislation. Extracting from existing domestic policies and documents andextraterritorial legislations, this part then discusses six aspects separately,the declaration body, range, classification, authority, procedure and legalresponsibility system. Every section includes an institution overview,problems in China and the foreign related systems, trying to establish theinstitution framework in China.The conclusion is the summary of the dissertation. Three basicquestions should be viewed rationally. The first is to rationally look at thecorruption problem, not to be mislead by different kinds of misleadingconcepts. The second is to rationally look at the corruption governanceproblem, to rationally look at the strategy, means and result of corruptiongovernance, seeking a rational, virtuous circle of corruption governanceapproach. The third is to rationally look at the legislation of propertydeclaration of public officials, examining its legislative resistance,legislative strategy, the implementation of the strategy, supporting systems,regime construction and construction function. When we assume that thelegislation of property declaration of public official is the breakthrough ofcorruption governance in China, we should also recognize the result ofsystem and the process of system rationally.