24.2Functions and Performance of the Commission Against Corruption of Macao

Public Ethics and Corruption in Macao 503

(4)Promote the protection of human rights, freedom, security, and legitimate interests of individuals, and to ensure the fairness, lawfulness, and efficiency of the public administration through the clauses laid down in Article 4 of this law and other informal channels4

Notwithstanding, the term “civil servant” here refers to those working in the public departments or bodies in which half or more of the operation funding is sponsored by the government,5 it is astonishing that the power of the anti-corruption body is limited to crimes related to civil servants as mentioned in section 2 of the Organizational Law. However, illegal behaviors or briberies, such as accepting bribes in personnel promotion or merchandizing, occurring in the private sector are excluded from the CAC’s investigation. Hence, employees in the private sectors can be immune from prosecution provided that those graft behaviors do not involve a public officer.

24.2.2Guidelines on the Professional Ethics and Conduct of Public Servants

The Macao administration enacted rules regulating the behaviors of public servants to maintain a high standard of ethics and clean government when it was still under the Portuguese rule. According to Article 279 of the General Regulations Governing the Staff of the Public Administration of Macao enacted in 1989,6 public servants have a series of obligations, including:

(1)Impartiality

(2)Zeal

(3)Obedience

(4)Loyalty

(5)Confidentiality

(6)Courtesy

(7)Assiduity

(8)Punctuality

(9)Not engaging in incompatible activities

Explanations of these obligations can be found in Clauses 3 to 11 in Article 279 of the same legislation (see Table 24.1). In addition to these regulations made decades ago, the CAC produced the Guidelines on the Professional Ethics and Conduct of Public Servants after the handover. These guidelines decode the definition of conflict of interest and other major ethical problems commonly found in Macao’s public service, including the handling of advantages received; outside employment; the recusal system; duty of confidentiality; use of department or institution property; legal liability; and duty to report and relevant channels.7 (See Appendix A for abstracts of

4Translations of sections 1–3 can be found on the Macao Commission Against Corruption official website: http://www.ccac.org.mo; section 4 is translated by the author directly from the Chinese version of this legisla-

tion. For details of this legislation, see http://bo.io.gov.mo/bo/i/2000/33/lei10_cn.asp.

5 See Panel Code, Article 364, MSAR Printing Bureau webpage: http://bo.io.gov.mo/bo/i/95/46/codpencn/ default.asp.

6For details of this regulation, see: http://bo.io.gov.mo/bo/i/89/51/estatuto_cn.asp (only Chinese and Portuguese versions are provided).

7A full version of the guidelines can be located on the CAC webpage: http://www.ccac.org.mo. For abstracts of these guidelines, see Appendix A.

©2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC

Source: Synthesizing various Annual Report of CAC from 2000 to 2007, website: http://www.ccac. org.mo/en/subpage.php?cat=intro&page=report.

aThe CAC Annual Report did not categorize criminal case and ombudsman case under case commenced item. The Annual Report in 2004 and 2005 only mentioned the number of criminal cases commenced in the chapter entitled Anti-Corruption instead of the chapter entitled General Description with Statistics used to report figures. Figures for these 2 years are calculated along this logic.

after almost a year-long investigation, people are so interested to see whether the authority would carry out a just investigation and prosecution in this case, as an ordinary citizen would be treated. Further, it is interesting to see that the total number of cases reported in 2007 was relatively low. One may expect that complaints should be increased after the arrest of Ao as there would have no other reason left to question the decisiveness of the CAC in combating bribery. The most possible factor driving such a phenomenon is that Ao’s case scares away those public servants who prefer to commit ethical crimes. Indeed, Ao’s case did encourage people to take notice of the performance of the civil service as the number of cases commenced in the ombudsman category drastically increased in 2007 compared with the previous 4 years.

Apart from the case reports made to the CAC to indicate their performance, the CAC is concerned about their performance evaluation by international organizations. Transparency International (TI) is a worldwide anti-corruption survey organization, and the CAC would pay relatively high attention to the surveys made by TI. In fact, the TI did not include Macao in its survey targets before 2006. According to an email enquiry to Liao Ran, TI’s senior program coordinator of South East Asia, made in early October 2006, “the countries which are listed on the CPI, they must be measured by three different surveys. Macao was not surveyed by three difference surveys, so it is not included.”8 Surprisingly, Macao was listed in the survey report by TI issued in November 2006 as there was a “small change to the methodology used

8Personal email enquiry made on October 5, 2006. I asked the TI why they did not include Macao in their survey because Macao was a place well known for gambling and corruption. Liao replied efficiently the next day.

©2011 by Taylor and Francis Group, LLC