Basic Laws of Anti-Corruption in the Five ASEAN Countries: Models and Options

Abstract

Corruption is a cancer in the world that destroys the credibility of the state and damages the interests of the people. It is the consensus and choice of the international community to prevent and punish corruption through anti-corruption legislation. There are three legislative models of anti-corruption basic laws in the world: the criminal legislative model which focuses on ex post punishment; the preventive legislative model which focuses on advancing prevention; the comprehensive legislative model which combines criminal punishment and pre-prevention. The Supervision Law is the latest achievement of China’s specialized anti-corruption legislation, but from the viewpoint of its legislative purpose and the setting of its provisions, it is not yet able to shoulder the responsibility of being conceptual design of a basic anti-corruption law. In the long run, China’s anti-corruption work needs a basic anti-corruption law construct with both prevention and punishment of corruption under comprehensive legislative model to lead and guide China’s anti-corruption cause from both “prevention” and “punishment” aspects, and accelerate the modernization of China’s corruption governance system and governance capacity.