PUBLIC POLICY ADVOCACY IN TAIWAN

Taiwan is the only country in the East and South East Asian region that regulates lobbying.  The Lobbying Act was ratified by the Legislative Yuan in July 2007  and officially took effect on 8 August in 2008.

• The Act defines lobbying as any direct contact with public officials, by verbal or written means, with the purpose of influencing the officials or their agency's attitude toward the formation, enactment, passage, alteration or  annulment of bills, policies or initiatives.
• Officials covered by the act include the President, Vice President, elected or appointed public officials at national or local level, heads of local governments and political appointees. According to the law, lobbyists are required to register their lobbying activities, and declare their lobbying expenditures to the concerned agencies.
• Lobbyists can be individuals, legal entities, or civic groups that solicit help on their own behalf or individuals or corporations that lobby on behalf of others.
• According to the law, lobbying on matters related to national defense, foreign affairs, China policy, national security, civil servants' duties, or the activities of foreign governments or international non-governmental organizations in Taiwan are prohibited.
• Agencies that are potential targets of lobbyists must designate a special unit or official to accept the lobbyists' registration. Within seven days after being approached, the officials should register with the designated unit or official to record the date, venue, method and content of the activity.
• Also, lobbyists are required to report lobbying expenditures to the concerned agencies by May 31 every year, and the concerned agencies should publicize financial reports quarterly.
• Within three years of their leaving office, the President, Vice president, political appointees appointed by the president and heads of local governments are banned from lobbying, in person, through their proxies or on behalf of others, agencies that they served in for five years before leaving office.
• In addition, foreign governments, legal persons or groups intending to lobby Taiwan public officials must consign a domestic lobbyist to do so on their behalf. Nevertheless, no individuals, legal entities or groups from China, Hong Kong and Macau are allowed to lobby Taiwanese public officials, no matter whether they lobby directly or operate through proxies.
• Among other key rules is that any persons who have been convicted of sedition, treason, graft, organized crime, fraud, embezzlement or breach of trust are forbidden from lobbying on others' behalf.
• Incumbent elected representatives and their associates cannot lobby for enterprises that they operate or those in which they have a stake of more than 10 percent.
• Any undisclosed lobbying activities, violations of the revolving door restrictions, and unlawful lobbying by elected representatives and their associates are punishable by fines of up to NT$2.5 million (US$82,000), according to the legislation.

The Lobbying Act is one of several "sunshine bills," including the Legislators' Conduct Act, the Public Functionary Assets Disclosure Act, the Public Officials' Conflicts of Interest Prevention Act, and the Political Contribution Act, to have passed into law since the 1990s.

Among the difficulties are the law’s excessively broad scope and requirement for huge amounts of paperwork and recordkeeping. Unlike the U.S. and Canadian models, which apply only to professional lobbyists of a certain scale, the Taiwan version impacts anyone who seeks to influence elected or politically appointed officials about laws, government policies, or pending legislation. Also unlike the North American examples, where a simple registration as a lobbyist is handled by a central office, in Taiwan separate registrations are required for each person and every particular “matter” to be lobbied. The various government organizations maintain their own windows for accepting such applications, and inevitably their interpretations of the rules often vary considerably from one another.

Another drawback of the law lies in the definition of the officials to be covered. Excluded are legislators’ administrative assistants, many of whom are regularly empowered to act on their boss’s behalf. That omission leaves a wide loophole in the efficacy of the law. At the same time, members of the Council of Grand Justices are inexplicably included in the law’s coverage, although it seems incredible that lobbying of the judiciary should be permitted.

For multinational companies operating in Taiwan, a key provision in the law may be the prohibition on “foreign companies” from engaging in lobbying themselves, requiring them to employ a professional lobbyist to represent them. This restriction does not affect subsidiaries, which are considered local companies established under ROC law, but it does apply to branches, unreasonably limiting many important players in the domestic economy in their ability to express views on policy to high-level officials.