Tag Archives: public record

A Cultural Defense to Bribery? The Solomon Islands’ Approach

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Gift-giving usually has positive connotations as an expression of love, respect, friendship, gratitude, or celebration. However, when the recipient is a public official, there is always the concern that the “gift” is nothing but a thinly-veiled bribe. For this reason, countries around the world have placed restrictions on the character and value of gifts that public officials are allowed to accept. But in societies where giving gifts – including, perhaps especially, to powerful or influential figures – is an important part of the culture, treating all (sufficiently large) gifts as unlawful bribes is more than usually challenging. Indeed, a recurring question for anticorruption reformers is whether or how anti-bribery law should make allowances for local cultural norms and practices, especially those related to gift-giving. This question – often framed as one of “cultural relativism” – frequently comes up in the context of developing countries (such as Indonesia or various Pacific islands), though it is not exclusive to such countries (see, for example, discussion of this same issue in South Korea).

One country that has recently faced the challenge of regulating cultural gift-giving to and by public officials is the Solomon Islands – a small state in the Pacific Ocean consisting of over nine hundred islands, a population of about 600,000, and a rich and fascinating history. For years, the Solomon Islands has been dealing with pervasive corruption at all levels of government, most notably in natural resources management, which has had disastrous ramifications for the country’s economic development (see here, here, and here). Like other Pacific islands, the Solomon Islands is home to a practice of traditional gift-giving to and by public officials, which in many other jurisdictions could be viewed as legally problematic. According to a local custom (as explained in an official government document), public officials, as members of their community, are “expected to contribute to community events such as weddings, funerals, feasts or church gatherings” and are “obligated to reciprocate with gifts if and when they visit communities and are presented with gifts.”

In July 2018, as part of a comprehensive national anticorruption scheme, the Solomon Islands’ Parliament enacted the much anticipated Anti-Corruption Act (ACA). The ACA is especially notable, and unusual, in its approach towards customary gifts and bribery. Instead of capping the monetary value or limiting the type of gifts which public officials are allowed to accept, the ACA introduced a new cultural defense to the offence of bribery of public officials. According to this defense, a public official who accepts or solicits something of value, as well as the individual who offers or gives it, is not guilty of bribery if the defendants can prove that their respective acts were conducted: (1) “in accordance with custom,” (2) “openly, in the course of a traditional exchange of gifts,” and (3) “for the benefit of a community or group of people and not for an individual.” According to Prime Minister Rick Houenipwela, the ACA’s cultural defense is required as part of the government’s obligation “to respect our customs and traditional cultures” as “a multi-ethnic post conflict country.” However, the cultural defense has been criticized by many, including the Parliament’s Bills and Legislation Committee (see here and here) and Transparency Solomon Islands, which referred to this defense as “a good example of bad law.”

In this post, I do not attempt to answer the question whether the Solomon Islands’ customary gift giving should be criminalized. I do wish to argue, however, that even if we assume that local gift-giving customs are worth protecting, the ACA’s cultural defense to bribery in its current form is highly susceptible to misuse and may undermine the government’s anticorruption efforts. Both the Solomon Islands and other jurisdictions that might be considering a similar cultural defense should take heed of four significant problems with the defense as currently written: Continue reading →

Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Land Reform: Can an “Incorruptible” Technology Cure Corruption?

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Since its inception in 2009, Bitcoin—a digital currency secured by encryption—has attracted attention, interest, and controversy. Less attention (at least until recently) has been paid to other applications of the underlying technology, “blockchain,” that makes Bitcoin possible. And while the anonymity associated with Bitcoin is, if anything, often associated with illicit transactions in the “dark web,” other applications of the blockchain technology might be used to enhance transparency and promote integrity. Some of the early proposals along these lines are indeed encouraging; at the same time, blockchain is not a technological panacea, and recognizing its limitations can identify areas that may require particular attention in anticorruption efforts.

First, a bit more (non-technical) information on the technology. Blockchain functions as an online, public digital ledger. In the Bitcoin context, the technology makes it possible to track and record Bitcoin transactions in the ledger and distribute that information in real-time to all computers connected to the Bitcoin network. Because of this distribution, the ledger is updated independent of any central authority. Moreover, because each chronological “block” in the chain contains both unique information about each transaction and also a unique identifier of the previous block, which is then distributed to all computers on the network, it is very difficult (perhaps impossible) to tamper with or alter the transaction records.

While the blockchain technology made Bitcoin possible, its public and tamper-proof data storage function could assist with efforts to promote transparency and fight corruption. For example, in the context of land reform, Austin-based start-up Factom has reached an agreement with the Honduran government to transfer its land registry onto a blockchain-enforced digital database. The objective is to create a reliable land title-keeping system in a country where, as USAID notes, “only 14% of Hondurans legally occupy properties and, of the properties held legally, only 30% are registered.” In addition to a lack of registration, government officials currently can alter titles to those properties that are registered, allocating properties to themselves (or to others in exchange for bribes). Moreover, citizens often lack access to records, which may provide conflicting information, and are thus unable to defend themselves against infringement of property, use, or mineral rights. By recording land title in an immutable public registry (relying, according to reports, on the Bitcoin blockchain’s data-embedding function), the partnership between Factom and the Honduran government seeks to secure for the public a clear, trustworthy record of ownership in order to improve protection of land rights, and to incentivize registration.

This seems like a worthwhile initiative, and one that transparency and anticorruption advocates should watch closely. At the same time, it’s worth noting several reasons we should be careful not to lose sight of important corruption challenges amidst the excitement surrounding the digitized ledger: Continue reading →

Automatic Government Retention of All Official Emails: An Easy Anticorruption Reform

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Former Secretary of State and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is currently under fire from Republican opponents and transparency advocates for her (alleged) circumvention of Federal recordkeeping laws. While this particular scandal (or pseudo-scandal) may soon pass, as have numerous other such scandals, the anticorruption community should take this opportunity to voice its support for a badly-needed reform to recordkeeping laws, to ensure that official emails sent by people in a position of public trust should be immutably preserved.

It seems almost too obvious, but “lost” and “misplaced” emails are often a major impediment in corruption investigations. At least three ongoing corruption investigations are touched by email deletions, to say nothing of past investigations:

  1. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo instructed his government to begin purging un-archived emails after 90 days, even as controversy and a Federal investigation swirls around his dismantling of the Moreland Commission. (He has now altered his policy somewhat)
  2. A Federal investigation into hundreds of millions of procurement dollars spent by the Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA) has been dragging on for years, crippled in part by missing emails that were “compromised” before the DRPA could turn them over to the U.S. Attorney. The DRPA (partly overseen by New Jersey Governor Chris Christie whose own history with deleted communications is muddled) lost 18 months worth of emails received by a single key official during a key period of time, due to a “software malfunction” with their in-house email system. DRPA’s Inspector General has since resigned in frustration.
  3. In a glimmer of hope, although recently-resigned Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber instructed members of his government to delete emails ahead of an FBI and IRS corruption probe, they refused to do so.

This is an absurd state of affairs, and entirely unnecessary. There is absolutely no compelling reason to not automatically preserve every email sent and received by civil servants. This is 2015: it is literally more expensive to take the time to actively delete emails than it is to simply keep them. Either governments haven’t realized this yet, or their claim that emails should be deleted for the sake of “efficiency” is in fact a red herring. I suggest the latter. The continued absence of appropriate email preservation rules for public servants, which would be incredibly easy to implement, will continue to frustrate anticorruption efforts. Continue reading →