New law to improve civil servant system
(China Daily)
Updated: 2004-12-18 00:37

China's civil servant system, adopted a decade ago as a major way to rule the country by law, will be further improved next year with the promulgation of a new law.

The law has been drafted and submitted to the State Council, China's cabinet, earlier this year, an official disclosed at a national conference yesterday in Beijing.

Zhang Bolin, minister of personnel, confirmed that the law has been submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People's Conference, China's top legislature, for examination and hopefully will be promulgated next year.

Zhang urged his local agencies to be well prepared for the promulgation of the Law on Civil Servants by working out a series of regulations step by step to ensure the enforcement of the law.

Although Zhang gave no details about the law, he made it clear the law and its related regulations would cover such areas as the duties, posts and ranks, recruitment, assessment, salaries, training, punishments and related issues concerning public servants.

The Chinese Government still has 5.3 million civil servants even after several national actions to reduce the size of its administrative structures.

To enhance government administrative capacity, the civil servant system must be further improved to increase their abilities, State Councillor Hua Jianmin said.

The law will make it possible for all public servants to be recruited through just, open and fair examinations, Zhang added.

"Over the past few years, no one can become a public servant without passing such examinations," he said, "adding that in the future, all government staff will be assessed on their abilities and performance."

To improve the work style of civil servants, new and practical rules will be adopted next year to increase their awareness of serving the people including requiring newly-recruited workers to swear their oath of allegiance to the people and commit better service for the people, Zhang said.

At present, China's civil service is divided into 15 ranks. An official's remuneration package is determined by ranks. So becoming a high-ranking official is the main goal of many newcomers as soon as they enter the rank of public servants, insiders said.

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