The new regime established by the statute of civil servants passed its final reading at the Legislative Assembly (AL).
The proposal to amend the current regime was approved unanimously with 32 votes in favor, adding more flexibility for the government to transfer workers between services and deploy them to the Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin.
During the debate over the bill, lawmakers expressed concerns that the new regime may be misused by department heads or other leadership posts to forcibly transfer staff members that they do not like to different service lines as a form of punishment.
The Secretary for Administration and Justice, André Cheong, remarked that although the regime allows civil servants to be transferred without their consent to different services based on need, the system “should not be used to demote or punish civil servants,” adding that they can submit a report, should they believe this is the case.
Nonetheless, some lawmakers continued to express concerns over the lack of an independent mechanism or body to investigate and process complaints from civil servants, saying that they can only resort to appeals to their superiors in cases of disagreement with colleagues of the same rank, but never with those of higher rank.
During the discussion of the several articles of the bill, Cheong said that the flexibility mechanism is also being considered as a form of training, namely for some less experienced department heads who can benefit from working in a different department to gain more experience.
