Research On The Property Declaration System

The property declaration system, which seen as"Sunshine Act"is the most effective measure of anticorruption, is applied in most countries in the world. There is a legislative motion in China Since 1988,which is still in its infancy. In view of both pros and cons, this thesis analyzes the property declaration system (PDS hereafter) and protection of privacy rights (PR hereafter)of civil servants.The first part introduces the property declaration system by civil servants and its definition, i.e., the civil servants should declare, register their properties to a given governmental agency at the initial, office and leaving periods at a given time, the given governmental agency check and announce their properties. It also states the specific contents of property declaration from the aspects of subject, object, governmental agency, types and principles of declaration. Then it analyzes the functions and theoretical basis of property declaration. It performs the functions of improvement of the public trust of government, prevention of official crime and increasing the government administrative efficiency. It puts forward the theoretical basis of property declaration system, which is to guarantee the right to know by civil residents, to supervise the implementation of rights by civil servants. It imply effective inspect to the people who use the power from the way that authority is limited by rights. The prerequisite of limited authority by rights is the right to know by civil residents. As long as the right to know of civil servants is guaranteed, they can participate in the democratic politics effectively.The second part generalizes the privacy rights of civil servants. On the basis of definition of privacy and privacy rights, this thesis compares the privacy rights between the civil servants and civil residents, the features of the former rest on the smaller range, the strong relation with public interests, conflicts of right to know and self interest.The third part analyzes the conflict and balance between properties declaration and the privacy rights of civil servants. Firstly, it describes the conflicts between PDS and privacy perception, PDS and the object of PR, PDS and protection returns. Secondly, it states the essence of the conflicts, which is the conflict between the right to know of the civil residents and the PR of civil servants. On one hand, in order to have a calming life and retain their self-image, the civil servants struggle to protect their privacy, especially some negative information. On the other hand, the public want to know more personal information of the civil servants for better supervision, power abuse, smuggling and corruption. Thirdly, it discusses the resolution of the conflict. Chinese scholars suggest six principles of right limitations: social politics and public interests priority, the correctness of right limitation priority, legal reservation, minimum harm priority, personal dignity priority and hierarchical limitation priority.The fourth part discusses how to build on the property declaration system. It introduces the current situation of the Chinese property declaration system, its shortcomings and some enlightenment of foreign countries. Finally this thesis puts forwards some measures to tackle the problems on the basis of the necessity and feasibility of PDS. The law of property declaration system should be set up as followed: the harmonization of legislation, the property declaration at the national level, giving it the authority of law; determining reasonable to declare the main scope of the property, the scope of the declaration of property registration, the types of property, auditing agency of property declaration, the implementation of public property status of the system.This thesis concludes that the purpose of discussion is to refute the infringement of property declaration system, legitimize the property declaration system as soon as possible on the basis of the right to know of the citizen and the privacy right of state functionary. The conflicts can be resolved. So, we should accelerate the speed in the legislation of property declaration.Along with the grim situation of the anti-corruption and challenges, anticorruption system should be erupted as soon as possible. In this case, the PDS is urgent. A series of corruption cases show that the loss of the property declaration system constitutes a breeding ground for corruption. Prevention of corruption is better than administration. PDS will not only reduce the administrative costs but also curb the motive of corruption. At this critical anti-corruption situation, an excuse of privacy rights protection cannot hinder the pace of the legislative process of PDS.