CE Defends Dismissal Clause For New Civil Servants

Chief Executive Carrie Lam rejected suggestions that a new civil service guideline to dismiss newly recruited civil servants if they get arrested and charged for taking part in protests and illegal activities was a presumption of guilt, and said the move was just an employment issue.

“How they perform, how they conduct themselves, what views expressed, if that’s going to detract from the image of the SAR government, then of course we have every reason not to keep the person in employment. It’s not a question of presumption of guilt, it's an employment issue," said the top official.

Speaking ahead of the Executive Council meeting on Tuesday, Lam said the measure targets in particular people on probationary terms.

"The [civil service] bureau has focused on the probationer, advising the heads of departments to make sure that they are monitoring and observing not only the performance of the probationer on the job, but also their conduct and their other behaviours to make sure that they will be good enough to serve the people of Hong Kong being an inalienable part of the People’s Republic of China."

She said that the current mechanism makes it very difficult to dismiss civil servants, therefore it was important that the government as an employer needed to observe these new recruits to ensure they "meet the high standards that I have just described" during the probationary period.

Reports have said that guidelines issued to government departments say that any civil servants who have been arrested and charged or prosecuted during their probationary period will be dismissed immediately.

Lam said that under the national security law, civil servants have to pledge allegiance to the Hong Kong SAR government and uphold the Basic Law.

The CE said civil servants are public officers, and there are very high expectations of every member of the civil service.

"They are subject to a more stringent set of standards and I would advise whoever wants to join the civil service of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, they have to make sure they can fulfil those requirements. So in terms of management of the civil service, of course recruitment is important so we bring in the right people."