Civil servants would not receive a promotion if they get a demerit for drunk driving, sexual harassment or stalking in the year before their annual performance evaluation after the Legislative Yuan yesterday passed an amendment to the Civil Service Promotion Act (公務人員陞遷法).
The bill is designed to refine the promotion system for civil servants and would reinforce the principle of a merit-based promotion system, said the Examination Yuan, which proposed the amendment.
Following the passage of the bill, civil servants should be promoted solely based on merit, instead of on seniority and merit.
Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times
Civil servants who win awards, achieve outstanding job performance and demonstrate high proficiency in specific languages would score extra points in the performance evaluation.
Meanwhile, civil servants who are on maternity leave and voluntarily accept a position with a lower rank would be waived from a screening procedure when they return to work, the bill says.
The bill also removes the rules in the act that prevent the government from considering for promotion civil servants who have been in their job for less than one year, but it adds new rules that ban those who receive a demerit because of driving while intoxicated, sexual harassment and stalking from being considered for promotion.
Separately, an amendment to the Plant Variety and Plant Seed Act (植物品種及種苗法) secured a third reading yesterday.
The bill authorizes the Council of Agriculture to list plant seeds that are banned from being exported to or imported from other nations. Crops and processed food made by the regulated seeds are subject to the same ban.
Individuals who contravene the ban could be sentenced to up to three years in prison and fined NT$600,000 to NT$3 million (US$19,492 to US$97,460). Seeds, crops and processed food would also be confiscated.
The council proposed the bill after China announced that it had successfully grown golden diamond pineapples, which were developed and produced in Taiwan. China in 2021 banned imports of Taiwanese pineapples.
“Taiwan owns advanced technology in increasing varieties of fruits and plants, as such multiple varieties of pineapples can be seen in Taiwan. Pineapples have emerged as the symbol of Taiwan’s agriculture industry,” Council of Agriculture Minister Chen Chi-chung (陳吉仲) said.
However, The Economist last week reported on how China stole agricultural technology from Taiwan and produced the pineapples in Hainan Province, he said.
“The report also exposed China’s two-handed strategy: banning the importation of Taiwanese pineapples on the one hand, and on the other hand stealing the pineapple varieties developed by Taiwan and naming them Chinese pineapples. The report showed that Taiwan is facing the challenge of China’s intellectual property rights infringement and undue competition in export markets,” Chen said.
“The amendment would enable the council to impose stricter measures to protect plant seeds. To protect our competitive edge in the export market, the Japanese Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has issued a temporary restraining order to block the importation of golden diamond pineapples grown in China while we apply for a patent for the pineapples,” he said.
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