The Criminal Policy of Curbing the Revolving Door Practice with an Emphasis on Disciplinary and Administrative Punishments

The act of hiring of a government ex-official by the private sector is referred to as “the revolving door practice”. Corruptive in nature, the practice is detrimental to public interest as well as public confidence in the government. Misusing the public office entrusted to him, a government official thereby engages in discriminatory treatment in his interactions with the private sector clients in an attempt to illegally earn benefits or enhance future career prospects. The revolver official is intent on diminishing the challenges of future employment in the private sector at the expense of public interests. Relying on the relations he has already made in the public office and the non-publicized information he had access to, the revolver gains extra benefits upon entering the private sector. Recruiting a descriptive-analytical method, the present study zeroes in exclusively on highlighting the necessity of designing a criminal policy in curbing corruption caused by the revolving door practice as well as scrutinizing the restrictions inherent to it. Findings indicate the need for proactive measures such as promotion of ethical codes of officials as well as ex post reactive measures including monitoring post-retirement occupational activities and identifying cooling-off periods. Furthermore, accessibility reactive responses including criminal, administrative and managerial sanctions can be helpfully applied. Finally, findings suggest that no workable plan of action has been developed in this respect in our country so far. It, therefore, behooves the policy-makers to learn form the experiences and guidelines of relevant international institutions and other countries.