Tag Archives: corruption

South Africa Exhibits the Pitfalls of Private Prosecutions for Corruption

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In March 2018, after several years of investigation stemming from allegations of corruption and mismanagement, South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) announced that it would not pursue charges against former South African Revenue Service Commissioner Tom Moyane. But this was decision short lived. A few weeks later, the NPA abruptly reversed course, explaining that it had reopened its investigation into Moyane and was reconsidering its decision not to prosecute. In the interim, the South African civil rights group Corruption Watch had publicly requested from the NPA a certificate of nolle prosequi—a document formally affirming the NPA’s decision not to prosecute. Obtaining such a certificate was a preliminary and necessary legal step for Corruption Watch to launch its own private prosecution of Moyane—which, under South African Law, Corruption Watch would have been able to do if the NPA formally declined to prosecute. Corruption Watch was calling NPA’s bluff, saying, in effect, “prosecute Moyane or else we will.”

Corruption Watch’s implicit threat stems from Section 7 of South Africa’s Criminal Procedure Act (CPA), which permits a citizen to criminally prosecute another person or entity if the NPA formally declines to prosecute. These prosecutions are similar to civil suits but with all the trial rights and potential penalties associated with a state prosecution. Moreover, at any time during a private prosecution the NPA may request permission from the supervising court to step back in and take over the case. South Africa is not unique in this regard: There are provisions for private prosecutions in other countries—especially Commonwealth countries—including the UK, Canada, Australia, Zimbabwe, and Kenya, as well as in China and Israel.

Many commentators in the international community have been optimistic about the potential of private prosecutions, particularly in combating corruption (see here, here, and on this blog here). And forces inside South Africa have been especially enthusiastic; in 2017, the South African civil society organization AfriForum launched its own dedicated private prosecutions unit focused on prosecuting corrupt government officials, with other organizations expressing similar interest. Much of this optimism stems from sheer frustration with the current prosecution regime in South Africa, a country that has long been plagued by selective prosecution, especially in the area of corruption.

South Africa could certainly use more pressure on the NPA to act; the country would also benefit from more resources, whatever the source, devoted to investigating and prosecuting corruption cases. And the fact that the threat of private prosecution appears to have spurred the NPA to action in the Moyane case is encouraging. Nevertheless, South Africa’s recent flirtation with private prosecutions actually illustrates why countries—including and perhaps especially South Africa—should be cautious about embracing organized, comprehensive private prosecution regimes to supplement traditional state prosecution. Continue reading →

A Border Patrol Surge Will Lead to a Border Corruption Surge

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The United States Customs and Border Protection service (CBP) is the largest law enforcement agency in the United States—and one of the most corrupt. CBP employs 59,000 people, of whom almost 20,000 are Border Patrol agents. Every day, these agents process over a million incoming U.S. travelers, 300,000 vehicles, and 78,000 shipping containers. On any given day they might seize over 5,000 pounds of narcotics and apprehend nearly 900 people at or near U.S. borders. Yet according to “conservative [] estimate[s],” about 1,000 Border Patrol agents—5% of the total—violate their official duties in exchange for bribes. To take just a handful of some of the most egregious examples: One CBP agent permitted smugglers to bring over 612 kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. in exchange for $1,000 for each kilo he waved through his checkpoint. Another allowed 1,200 pounds of marijuana to enter into the U.S. in exchange for $60,000. Yet another CBP agent permitted vehicles containing undocumented immigrants to enter the U.S. at a price of $8,000-10,000 per vehicle.

In response to this widespread corruption, the Department of Homeland Security convened an independent Integrity Advisory Panel in 2015. But the Panel’s 2016 report fell on deaf ears, as almost none of its 39 recommendations were implemented. Instead, in line with his hardline stance on immigration, President Trump signed a 2017 executive order mandating hiring an additional 5,000 Border Patrol agents and “appropriate action to ensure that such agents enter on duty . . . as soon as practicable.”

Increasing the number of agents by 25% without devoting significant resources to combat the pervasive corruption in CBP is a terrible idea, and is likely to exacerbate current corruption problems, for three reasons: Continue reading →

What the U.N. Treaty Bodies Have Said About Human Rights and Corruption

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The nations of the world are parties to numerous treaties where they pledge to respect the rights of their citizens, everything from their civil and political rights to their right to economic development to the right to be free from torture.  Ten of these treaties have an expert body which periodically reports on a state’s compliance with the treaty’s provisions.  As the connection between corruption and human rights violations has become ever clearer, these treaty bodies have begun noting in their reports how corruption contributes to a state’s failure to comply with its human rights obligations.

The Geneva Centre for Civil and Political Rights recently combed through the hundreds of reports the treaty bodies have issued over the past decade to produce a summary and analysis of what they have said on the subject of human rights and corruption. Comments by UN treaty bodies on corruption is a valuable resource for both human rights advocates and anticorruption activists. My thanks to the Centre for producing it.

Putting Corruption on the Human Rights Agenda

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The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights along with the UNODC will hold an expert workshop this Monday, June 11, on what the human rights bodies within the United Nations system can do to advance the fight against corruption.  A cross-section of human rights and anticorruption experts will discuss ways to link anticorruption measures with efforts to promote and protect human rights, examine methods for assessing the impact corruption has on the enjoyment of human rights, and consider what more the UN-system, particularily the Human Rights Council, can do to assist member states adopt a rights-based approach to combatting corruption.  More information on the session here.

The workshop will be followed by a meeting jointly organized by Center for Civil and Political Rights, the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to develop new advocacy tools for the UN human rights mechanisms, in particular the bodies that oversee compliance with the various human rights treaties, to address the issue of corruption.  More information on this meeting here.

This writer is one of several activists concerned with both human rights and corruption who identfied eight actions that should be immediately taken to align efforts to promote human rights with those aimed at fighting corruption.  The eight are listed in the following letter that will be provided to all those attending the two meetings. Continue reading →

Two Essential Volumes on Corruption

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The study of corruption and what to do about it is no longer an academic or policy-studies backwater.  Matthew’s bibliography of corruption-related publications now lists over 6,000 books, articles, and reports and, as his regular updates show (thank you Matthew), the list continues to grow at the rate of some 50 plus per month.  That is the good news.  It is also of the course the bad news.  Few practitioners, and I suspect even academics, can claim to have absorbed the learning in the 6,000 current documents let alone keep up with the outpouring of new works.

For those who can’t , I recommend two recent books: Dan Hough’s Analysing Corruption and Alina Mungui-Pippidi and Michael Johnston’s Transitions to Good Governance: Creating Virtuous Circles of Anti-Corruption.  Both do an excellent job of synthesizing and extending recent scholarship on corruption issues, and both do so in a sophisticated but accessible manner.  Both have the added virtue of being available in reasonably priced paperback editions. Continue reading →

India’s 2G Spectrum Case: The Scam That Wasn’t?

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It all started in May 2009 with a report filed by an NGO, Telecom Watchdog, with India’s Central Vigilance Commission. The NGO claimed that there were gross irregularities, likely due to corruption, in the allocation of licenses to operators for the 2nd Generation mobile communication standard spectrum (2G spectrum for short). By October 2009, India’s premier investigating agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), had opened an investigation into the allegations, and in November 2010, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India estimated the losses to the government from the alleged misconduct at a whopping US$29 billion. Indian media called it the “biggest scam in the history of Independent India.” Time Magazine put it just behind Watergate as the second worst case of abusing executive power.

Petitions were filed in the Supreme Court of India pressing for cancelling the allocation and making sure that those behind the corruption would be held responsible. In 2012, the Supreme Court obliged, canceling all 122 licenses and imposing huge fines. The Court declared that the then-Minister for Communications and Information Technology, A. Raja, had used an inappropriate allocation procedure (first-come-first-served rather than an auction) to “favor some of the applicants … at the cost of the exchequer.” In an unprecedented move, the Court also ordered the creation of a “Special Court” to try the cases, and modified regular criminal procedure by curbing intermediate challenges, in order to ensure a speedy trial. The first case was instituted against the former Minister, senior bureaucrats, and prominent businessmen for conspiring to rig the allocation process and cheat the government of revenue.

On December 21, 2017, the Special Court announced its verdict—and it was not what many had expected: The Special Court acquitted all the accused, declaring that “a huge scam was seen by everyone when there was none,” and that “some people created [the perception of] a scam by artfully arranging a few selected facts and exaggerating things beyond recognition to astronomical levels.” The Court also found that, notwithstanding the earlier 2010 report (which others had already suggested was methodologically problematic), the actual losses to the government were marginal at most.

Many commentators were stunned and dismayed by the Special Court’s decision, denouncing it as “shocking” and “flawed.” But after reading the Special Court’s decision, I find myself in agreement with the Special Court’s reasoning. While it’s impossible, in a short blog post, to wade through the merits of the Special Court’s analysis for each of its conclusions, here I want highlight some of the most important arguments in support of the Special Court’s controversial decision. Continue reading →

Thoughts from the Menendez Trial: Preventing Corruption from the Start

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Last fall’s corruption trial of U.S. Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) ended rather anticlimactically, with the presiding judge declaring a mistrial after the jury announced that it couldn’t reach a decision, and the Department of Justice eventually deciding not to retry him. Senator Menendez had been accused of taking donations and gifts from Florida ophthalmologist Salomon Melgen in exchange for advocating for visas for Melgen’s foreign girlfriends, the award of a government contract, and the resolution of a Medicare billing dispute. Plenty of digital ink has already been spilled on the broader implications of the Menendez case for other bribery prosecutions (on this blog here, and elsewhere here and here).

But putting aside the specifics of the case, what caught my eye about the allegations against Senator Menendez was a background feature of U.S. law that seems to have gone largely undiscussed: It’s perfectly legal (and normal) for non-constituents to contribute to political candidates. In other words, even if you are barred from voting for a candidate because you live outside that candidate’s district, you can still express your support by pulling out your checkbook. That lack of constraint on donations seems to invite the very kind of corruption the government alleged in the Menendez case, because it allows a wealthy donor to find and purchase his or her own “personal United States senator.”

I’m certainly not the first person to voice the concern that allowing non-residents to contribute to political candidates may facilitate corruption. Two states—Alaska and Hawaii—have recognized the risk posed by allowing non-residents to contribute to political candidates. They’ve responded by limiting those donations. But in the Lower 48 and in all federal elections, there are no differential limits on contributions from people residing outside the state, so long as they are American citizens or permanent residents. (Alaska’s law is currently facing a First Amendment challenge from an aspiring donor whose gift was returned because the candidate he supported had already reached the out-of-state contribution limits. A federal judge upheld the law as a “closely drawn” effort by the state to prevent “quid pro quo corruption or its appearance,” but the would-be donor has appealed.) Putting aside the constitutional defenses of the sorts of laws that Alaska and Hawaii have adopted (which you can find in the amicus briefs filed in the Alaska case here, here, and here), there are strong policy reasons for limiting contributions by people living outside a state or district—not least because such limits, as the judge in the Alaska case noted, can be a useful tool for preventing corruption or its appearance:

Continue reading →

Why Samsung’s Recent Conviction Will Not Rid South Korea of Chaebols

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Samsung is in search of a new leader after Jay Y. Lee, grandson of Samsung’s founder, was convicted of bribing South Korea’s President to approve a controversial merger between two Samsung affiliates. Many thought that the proposed merger, which had been heavily criticized by independent analysts and investors, would not receive the legally-required approval from then-President Park Geun-hye’s administration. Lee allegedly bribed President and people close to her, to the tune of $38 million, for her support. When this corruption was exposed, President Park resigned and Lee was prosecuted and ultimately convicted.

Some hope that these dramatic developments portend more far-reaching changes in South Korea’s economy—in particular, the destruction of the chaebols (literally “wealth clans”), the multinational conglomerates in which leadership is passed from person to person within a family. Many credit chaebols with the successful post-World War II transformation of South Korea’s agrarian economy into an international economic powerhouse, but others criticize chaebols on a number of grounds, including the claim that they concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a small family minority, pay low dividends to ordinary investors, and facilitate the sort of grand corruption exposed in the Samsung affair.

After President Park resigned in disgrace, she was replaced by President Moon Jae-in, promised to put an end to chaebols altogether. Alas, this is unlikely. Indeed, it’s looking increasingly like Samsung’s recent scandal will not have a lasting effect on chaebols, or even on Samsung’s long-term profitability. Continue reading →

Governor Brown’s Missed Opportunity to Promote Political Transparency and Fight Trumpian Corruption

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Last month, Republicans announced their plan for a comprehensive overhaul of the United States federal tax code, the first in decades. In characteristic fashion, President Trump promised, “I don’t benefit. I don’t benefit.” To clarify his point, he added, “I think very, very strongly, there’s very little benefit for people of wealth.” Lest those statements left any doubt, Trump later claimed, “I’m doing the right thing and it’s not good for me, believe me.” Notwithstanding the President’s promises, a New York Times analysis found that Trump could save over a billion dollars if his plan were to be passed into law. Seemingly responding to this reality, Trump later amended his sales pitch by claiming that “everybody benefits” from tax reform.

Tax reform fits squarely into the third category of conflicts tracked by this blog: government regulatory and policy decisions that benefit Trump and his family businesses. Americans deserve to know how the President would personally stand to gain if his proposal became law. Yet the extent of Trump’s conflict of interest remains unknown, and unknowable, because of his widely-criticized refusal to release his tax returns.

Unfortunately, California Governor Jerry Brown squandered an opportunity to force Trump to shed some light on his personal finances when he vetoed the Presidential Tax Transparency and Accountability Act, which had passed both houses of the state legislature with overwhelming support. The Act would have required all aspiring Presidential candidates to provide their tax returns to the California Secretary of State (who would then publish them online) before the candidate’s name could appear on the California primary election ballot. In his veto message, Governor Brown explained that while he “recognize[d] the political attractiveness—even the merits—of getting President Trump’s tax returns,” he worried about the “political perils of individual states seeking to regulate presidential elections in this manner.” Brown identified two specific concerns about the bill: its constitutionality and the potential “slippery slope” it might create.

Brown’s arguments ring hollow. They seem particularly unjustified in a time in which state action is one of the few viable bulwarks against Trump’s corruption. Fortunately, other states, including Massachusetts and New York, are considering similar proposals. Those states can do better than California. Here’s why they should: Continue reading →

Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Anti-Nepotism, and Conflicts of Interest

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On the same day as President Trump’s swearing in, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) released a memorandum elaborating upon why President Trump’s appointment of his son-in-law Jared Kushner as a Senior White House Advisor did not violate the federal anti-nepotism statute (5 U.S.C. § 3110). That statute prohibits a public official (including the President) from appointing or employing a relative (which the statute defines as including a son-in-law or daughter-in-law). The OLC reasoned that despite the seemingly clear prohibition in 5 U.S.C § 3110, another federal statute, 3 U.S.C. § 105(a), exempted positions in the White House Office from the anti-nepotism law. The OLC recognized this conclusion was a departure from its own precedent, but with the aid of some selective reading of legislative history, the OLC argued that lawmakers intended to allow the president “total discretion” in employment matters when it passed 3 U.S.C. § 105(a). (For non-specialists, see this primer for an explanation of these and other federal laws and regulations which could be relevant for addressing corruption in the Trump Administration.)

Somewhat predictably, the OLC memo generated debate among legal commentators (see here, here, here, and here). Yet even if the legal arguments were not entirely convincing, the OLC ended with a practical point that was echoed by many of the commentaries: given that President Trump will seek Mr. Kushner’s advice, regardless of whether he is a formal employee, it would be better for Mr. Kushner to be formally employed as a White House advisor, and thus subject to the applicable conflict-of-interest (COI) and financial disclosure rules. The same argument applies to Ivanka Trump, who also recently became an employee of the White House.

Some anticorruption advocates, myself included, were persuaded at the time by the OLC’s practical point. It would be best if the President did not make major policy decisions on the advice of radically unqualified relatives. But unfortunately, he is going to turn to them for advice. Given that baseline, we should prefer those family members occupy formal appointments, where at least they will be constrained by the COI statute and disclosure rules. However, with the benefit of hindsight, we should never have been persuaded. The COI statute and the disclosure rules turn out to be ineffective devices for preventing corruption in the Trump era. While the disclosure rules did encourage Mr. Kushner to make some divestments, they do not contain enough details to identify potential conflicts. And when there are conflicts, the COI statute is unlikely to be enforced, either because Attorney General Jeff Sessions will choose not to, or because the White House will grant a waiver.

Continue reading →