New rules on dismissing Chinese public servants trigger debate
3/12/2008 17:38
New rules outlining how a civil servant can be sacked have drawn criticism
from the public, along with praise for a reform that is much needed in China's
political system.
China's state bureau of civil servants yesterday,
stipulated that civil servants, who were evaluated as "incompetent" for two
consecutive years in the annual assessment, would be dismissed.
The bureau
said those "whose ideological and political quality is relatively bad, whose
working ability cannot meet the requirement of their jobs, whose dereliction of
duty caused serious losses and had a bad social impact, or who behaved without a
sense of responsibility to their work" were "incompetent".
A netizen from
Shanghai hailed the regulations.
"Great! The posts of civil servants are no
longer 'iron bowls' (food, housing and welfare provisions). Those who failed to
do their jobs should get out as soon as possible," read the post.
However,
many of the others were not so optimistic.
"It's difficult to say whether the
regulations would be well implemented as there is no efficient supervision
system and independent third party evaluation," wrote another post.
The
direct superior officials of each civil servant are in charge of giving advice
on the evaluation, which will be finally decided by the officials in charge of
the whole department or an assessment committee.
Zhu Lijia, professor of the
National School of Administration, said it's the first time that China has drawn
up detailed regulations on the assessment of civil servants after the country's
law on civil servant took effect on Jan. 1, 2006.
However, he criticized the
standards, saying they should be made more practical and impersonal.
"Or it
would all depend on the officials' will," he said.
Gao Jingyi, a civil
servant working with a state department, said the detailed regulations were a
step forward from previous law.
"It will help improve our work effectiveness
under the threat of being dismissed if the regulations can be well implemented,"
he said.
However, he also said the regulations were not practical
enough.
"For example, I cannot tell from the regulations whether I would be
evaluated as less competent if I ask for leave on one occasion," he said.
On
one of China's biggest websites, www.sina.com.cn, more than 1500 netizens made
their comments on the issue.
Despite of the new rules, a government job was
still considered a stable post, compared with those in private sectors in face
of the global financial crisis.
A total of 775,000 people took a nationwide
exam in 38 cities of China to qualify for 13,500 posts as national civil
servants on Sunday.
Xinhua
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