The Executive Yuan recently passed a draft of the "Whistleblower Protection Act" to encourage people to blow the whistle on unscrupulous public sector or business practices. The legislature's Judiciary and Organic Laws and Statutes Committee examined the draft bill on May 23. Several legislators criticized the draft bill for not protecting cooperative education participants, interns, and dispatch workers.


Recently, a manufacturer was found to be repackaging rotten eggs and selling them. Less than a week later, it was reported for selling expired egg products. These cases only came to light because of whistleblowers. The first whistleblower not only lost the job, but was also threatened and has been unable to find a new job. The Executive Yuan recently passed a draft of the "Whistleblower Protection Act" to keep the identities of whistleblowers confidential and protect their working rights. Several legislators criticized the draft bill for not doing enough to protect whistleblowers against retaliation from companies. The draft bill only allows for fines of NT$50,000 to NT$5 million, which some companies are more than willing to pay to dispose of the matter.

Blowing the whistle may put the lives of whistleblowers at risk, or they may risk not ever being promoted again. However, leaking the identity of whistleblowers is only punishable by a fine of several tens of thousands of NT dollars.

(The draft bill) omits cooperative education participants, interns, and dispatch workers, who could all be whistleblowers.

Several lawmakers proposed a public welfare whistleblower protection draft bill that emphasizes public welfare and includes protection for dispatch workers, interns, and cooperative education participants who blow the whistle. They said they don't encourage everyone to become whistleblowers, because trust between people is the foundation of a stable society. Other legislators asked why the Executive Yuan's draft bill does not protect those wishing to blow the whistle on the media. They therefore proposed incorporating media whistleblowers into the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act and the Referendum Act to prevent external influences from "manipulating information."

But the Civil Servants Election and Recall Act and the Referendum Act do not protect media whistleblowers, so what can we do about this, Mr. Minister? We did do this when discussing this draft bill, we did raise it and everyone discussed it.

The Ministry of Justice says previous discussions centered on the fear of whistleblowing being used to manipulate elections. Now, there is so much fake news and the situation has changed, so it wants to discuss this issue again.



廠商被查獲回收黑心蛋再製變賣，一週內，又被檢舉、抓到賣過期蛋液。黑心蛋商連環爆，幾乎都是內部人檢舉，只是當初檢舉的「吹哨者」，不僅丟了工作，還面臨威脅，找不到新工作。(資料畫面out)因此行政院提出「揭弊者保護法」草案，讓吹哨者的身份受到保密，並保障工作權。不過，有立委指出，針對企業對揭弊者採取不利人事措施，草案中只罰5到500萬元罰鍰，企業可能花錢了事。

時代力量立委 洪慈庸表示：「這對於揭弊者來說，他可能冒的是生命的風險，或是他一輩子升遷的，這樣的一個風險，但是洩密可能就只有罰個幾萬塊。」

民進黨立委 鍾孔炤表示：「（法案)疏漏了建教生，你們疏漏了實習生，你們疏漏了這些派遣人員。」

因此有立委提出「公益通報者保護法草案」，將內容著重在公益性，並將派遣人員、建教生與實習生納入保護；也強調並非鼓勵大家都來當揭弊者，因為人與人之間的信任，才是社會穩定的基礎。此外，也有立委指出，如果揭弊者要揭弊的對象是媒體，目前卻沒有在法案內保護，因此提議把媒體內部吹哨者，一起納入選罷法與公投法保護，來對抗境外勢力，進行「資訊操弄」的可能性。

民進黨立委 鍾佳濱 vs. 法務部長 蔡清祥表示：「(但是選罷法跟公投法裡面，對於媒體內部的揭弊者沒有被保護到，所以部長怎麼辦？) 這個我們在討論這個草案的時候，是有做，有提出來一些大家討論。」

法務部表示，之前的討論因為擔心選舉敏感，可能有用揭弊方式，來操作選舉的狀況發生，不過因為現在假訊息充斥，情勢有改變，因此願意重新討論。