The Government Information Office (GIO) yesterday gave its Paris-based official Pan Shun-yun (潘舜昀) a reprimand for a newspaper opinion piece that defended the reputation of disgraced former colleague Kuo Kuan-ying (郭冠英).
Kuo, the former acting director of the information division at Taiwan’s representative office in Toronto, was relieved of civil servant status last week in the wake of the controversy over online articles he wrote under the pen name Fan Lan-chin (范蘭欽) smearing Taiwan and Taiwanese.
Although the GIO fired Kuo for remarks he made regarding the incident afterward that it considered to be “in defiance of the government,” politicians and civic groups condemned Kuo for his discriminatory views against Taiwan in the articles.
The many articles critical of Kuo, his personality, his interpersonal skills and his performance evaluation were described negatively in a profile story posted in the Chinese-language United Daily News.
Pan, first secretary at the Taipei Representative Office in Paris, seemed to come forward to dismiss criticism of Kuo in an opinion piece under his byline and using his diplomatic title that was published on the newspaper’s opinion page last Wednesday.
After Pan admitted last Friday that Kuo wrote the article under his name, he was referred to the GIO’s Evaluation and Discipline Committee for punishment.
The committee concluded yesterday that Pan had violated the Civil Servants Work Act (公務員服務法) by writing an opinion piece on how the work performance of civil servants was appraised using his official title without the permission of his superiors.
The committee’s conclusion ignored the fact that Pan was not the author of the article.
A press statement released by the GIO said that civil servants were required by Article 20 of the Civil Service Performance Evaluation Act (公務人員考績法) to keep the appraisal process confidential.
Pan was unavailable for comment, but his colleague in Paris said that he would respect the committee’s decision.
In related news, when approached by a reporter from cable news channel TVBS in Vancouver Airport yesterday on his way back to Taiwan, Kuo told the reporter: “I will not go to the GIO [today].”
The GIO required Kuo to report to it by today to complete paperwork before leaving the office.
“What the hell is the GIO? What is the GIO? Tell me what the GIO is? What is the GIO? I don’t understand. Going to the GIO [today]? Why should I go to the GIO?” Kuo said.
Kuo said that he would appeal to the Civil Service Protection and Training Commission against the GIO’s decision to fire him and would continue to publish articles under the pen name Fan Lan-chin.
When asked about the article he allegedly wrote under Pan’s name, Kuo responded: “The article was written by me. [Now that Pan] has signed it over to me, it is [Pan’s] work. Was that still mine? Let me ask you this, presidents always have their articles written by their secretaries. Are they the presidents’ works or the secretaries’?”
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