Emily Chueh
The Legislative Yuan adopted Article 6-1 as added to the Anti-corruption Statute (hereinafter, the “Statute”) during the 6th Meeting of the 1st Session of the 9th Term on March 25, 2016 with the effective date to be separately set by the Executive Yuan.
Under Article 6-1, which is added to the Statute, in case of a civil servant who has committed malfeasance under the Anti-corruption Statute and Chapter 4 of the Criminal Code; an offense of concealing the offenses of others under Article 9 of the Statute for Preventing Organized Crime, Article 10, Paragraph 1 of the Anti-smuggling Statute, Article 15 of the Narcotics Hazard Prevention Statute, and Article 36 of the Human Trafficking Prevention Law, Article 16 of the Statute for Controlling Guns, Ammunition and Knives, and Article 89 of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law; an offense of concealing the offenses of others under the Child and Youth Sexual Transaction Prevention Law; and other offenses committed by leveraging the authority, opportunities or methods available to the civil servant in the discharge of his/her duty, if a prosecutor finds in the course of investigation that the increase of the assets of the civil servant and his/her spouse or underage children during the three-year period after the alleged offense is committed is obviously not comparable to their income, the prosecutor may order these individuals to provide explanation concerning the assets with suspicious sources. If explanation is not provided with justification, if reasonable explanation cannot be provided or if false explanation is provided, the offender is subject to imprisonment of up to five years, detention and/or, in lieu thereof or in addition thereto, a fine of up to the amount of asset derived from unknown sources.
Article 20 of the Statute was also amended. With respect to Article 6-1 as amended this time, the effective date will be separately set by the Executive Yuan.