The head of Hong Kong’s Public Service has defended new guidelines calling for the dismissal of Government employees charged with taking part in unlawful protests during their probation period.
Patrick Nip Tak Kuen (pictured) brushed aside concerns the move would violate the presumption of innocence.
Asked if the Public Service had imposed more stringent requirements on Public Servants following the imposition of the Beijing-decreed National Security Law earlier in the year, Mr Nip said the new memo were merely an elaboration of existing Public Service regulations.
He also dismissed the suggestion the practice was against the common law principle of presumption of innocence, something critics have argued as Public Servants could lose their jobs before a court had found them guilty.
“The court judgment is a ruling on criminal responsibility, but the issue in question now is … a relationship between the employer and the employee,” Mr Nip said.
“We cannot just use the bar of criminal responsibility to decide whether the staffer should pass probation,” he said.
Chief Secretary, Matthew Cheung Kin-chung supported Mr Nip, saying Public Servants must stay impartial and politically neutral, and that the Government would not tolerate any staffers who breached the law.
Earlier, Chief Executive, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said the new Public Service recruits “should watch what they say on social media and the internet, or risk being fired for creating a negative impression”.
The Government has been targeting the 180,000-strong Public Service in recent months after a year-long period of social unrest in which at least 43 Government employees were charged or placed under police investigation for their roles in pro-democracy protests.
Hong Kong, 25 August 2020
