The legislature yesterday passed an amendment to the Public Servant Administrative Neutrality Act (公務人員行政中立法) that local media have dubbed a “special clause” for Chen Pei-chi (陳佩琪), the wife of independent Taipei mayoral candidate Ko Wen-je, after she was accused of violating the act by participating in her husband’s campaign activities last month.
In the middle of last month, the Taipei City Government said that since Chen is a pediatrician at Taipei City Hospital’s Heping Fuyou Branch, she qualifies as a civil servant and is therefore barred from campaigning for Ko.
The claim was backed by Minister of Civil Service Chang Che-chen (張哲琛), who said that Chen is subject to the act, but added that the ministry would revise the act’s enforcement rules before the election on Nov. 29 with “social customs and common sense” in mind.
Regulations prevent civil servants from “standing on stage,” stumping and soliciting votes for spouses who are running for office. The passage of the amendments would allow civil servants who are married to a candidate, or are their first or second-degree relative to participate in campaign events. However, the activities cannot pertain to the field in which the civil servant works.
Ko yesterday said that while he and his wife might not benefit from the change since the amendments have yet to be promulgated, it is laudable that the “rules have been made clearer.”
“Otherwise, it would be weird to see [Taipei Mayor] Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) and [Taipei City Social Welfare Department Commissioner] Wang Hao (王浩) accompanying [Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei mayoral candidate] Sean Lien (連勝文) on his canvassing tours all the time, but whenever my wife came out she was immediately identified as a civil servant,” he said.
When criticized last month, Chen said that the ministry’s proposal to amend the law “would have attested [to her] violation under the existing regulations,” adding sarcastically that it is “embarrassing that [I am] the only one in years who has violated a law that has existed for decades.”
The amendments also include a revision to a clause of the act governing researchers at academic and research institutes, and the political activities of executives at state-run businesses — the so-called Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) special clause. Under the revision, researchers and professors will be able to engage in politics without holding administrative positions, after previously being barred from doing so.
Huang, an associate research professor at Academia Sinica and a key figure in the Sunflower movement against the government’s handling of the cross-strait service trade agreement, was accused by KMT Legislator Lu Hsueh-chang (呂學樟) in May of running afoul of the law.
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