On The Improvement Of Official Property Declaration System

Civil servant property declaration system as a "Sunshine Act, " is an internationally accepted anti-corruption tool. Many countries use this system to prevent and punish corruption. Civil servants in these countries often need to declare their properties to the relevant authorities on a regular basis, as their basic responsibilities and obligations. There are many explanations regarding civil servant property declaration in the academic circle. But it is the proposition of this paper that civil servant property declaration refers to "a system in which civil servants of a certain level or within a specific range, truthfully and in accordance with legal provisions, report property status of their own and that of their close relatives to relevant supervision authorities, and accept public oversight. " The scope of civil servants with a leadership position as described in this paper, coincides with the provisions of Article XVI of the Chinese Civil Servant Law, which defines leadership positions in the following hierarchy: national chief, national deputy; provincial chief, deputy provincial chief, department and bureau chief, deputy bureau chief, county level chief, deputy county chief, township level chief, township level deputy chief. Thus, civil servants with a leadership position refer not only to those above the county level, but rather to those above the township level as well. Civil servants with leadership position in all levels of state administration posses more functional power of organization, decision-making, and ordering. With these special powers and resources, they face higher temptation of corruption. Should they not declare their properties, it is easier for them to fall to bribe taking and corruption. Based on the actual situation of China’s current anti-corruption practices, and in order to meet the public’s expectations for publication of officials? property ownership, it is imminent to build a property declaration system for civil servants with a leadership position.The main purpose of this study is to construct a property declaration system for civil servants in leadership position, that is in line with China’s national conditions. At present, there is no formal legal regulation on civil servants property declaration, nor any other rules from the legislation perspective. The author intends to explore ways of constructing a civil servant property declaration system from the legislative perspective, with hopes that a formal and unified Law on Property Declaration for Civil Servants with Leadership Positions will be published, so as to normalize property declaration practices among the above-mentioned civil servants.There are four parts in this paper, a total of four parts. The first part introduces the background and significance of the topic, through a combination of domestic and foreign research results,explaining the thinking and methods of this paper. The second part enumerates the flaws of current regulations on civil servant property declaration, based on existing theory and practices. By analyzing the causes of these defects, the paper hopes to provide insights for the construction of a property declaration system for civil servants with leadership positions. The third part is to introduce the various modes of foreign countries or regions on official property declaration system, learning from foreign experiences and success. The last part is the focus of this paper, which illustrates how to build a property declaration system for civil servants with leadership positions from a legislative perspective. Drawing upon the variety of above-mentioned issues discussed in this paper, learning from the successful experiences abroad, focusing on the ongoing exploration and improvement of legislative concepts, content and specific legislative procedures, it is the hope of this paper that the Law on Property Declaration for Civil Servants with Leadership Positions will ultimately be introduced.