Demanding that officials resign whenever a government department is embroiled in controversy is destructive to employee morale and harmful to the nation’s democracy.
In the latest example, some have called for Representative to Japan Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) to step down after the director-general of the Osaka branch of the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in Japan, Su Chii-cherng (蘇啟誠), took his life in the aftermath of Typhoon Jebi this month. Su had apparently succumbed to stress after people criticized the office’s response to travelers stranded at Osaka’s Kansai International Airport.
Hsieh on Wednesday said that he still had a lot of work to do to set the record straight regarding Su.
Hsieh’s handling of the issue should be commended, as he is resolute in his efforts to uncover the problems that led to Su’s death, rather than taking another post and hiding until things cool down.
This is how the resignation of an official should be understood — not as a form of justice, but as an escape through the cultural practice of allowing them to “step down a level” to save face — an abrogation of accountability. By stepping down, not only does the official avoid having to solve the issue that led to the controversy, they also leave the department without the leadership with which it is familiar. A replacement lacks that familiarity, and is unaccustomed to the demands of the role.
Asking officials to resign has become so commonplace in the nation’s politics that it is an automatic response whenever something goes wrong.
Former minister of education Pan Wen-chung (潘文忠) in April was forced to resign amid controversy surrounding the legality of National Taiwan University president-elect Kuan Chung-ming (管中閔) taking the post.
Pan’s replacement, Wu Maw-kuen (吳茂昆), lasted less than two months.
Despite his quick resignation, Wu defended the ministry’s position regarding Kuan.
Was shuffling ministers a way to avoid taking decisive action on what had become such a heated topic?
Just last month, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus called for the resignation of Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中) after a fire at a hospital in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊) killed nine people.
Two months before that, Animal Rescue Team Taiwan spokesperson Anthony Ni (倪京台) called for Animal Protection and Health Inspection Office Director Chen Yuan-chuan (陳淵泉) to step down after it was found that a blind dog had been abandoned on a mountain in New Taipei City by an animal shelter run by the office.
The fire might have been due to negligence and the dog’s abandonment certainly was, but in both cases due process would have seen an investigation to determine where along the chain of command things went awry and what supervisory changes should be implemented to prevent similar incidents.
In the event that top leadership is found to be responsible for a major problem, they should be removed from public office entirely, rather than reshuffled.
A Cabinet reshuffle in February saw then-minister of foreign affairs David Lee (李大維) become National Security Council secretary-general after he was criticized over a mistake in newly designed passports. It seems unlikely that Lee would even have known about the mistake and it was illogical to move him from a position where he had experience to one where he did not.
Resignations and reshuffles should be exceptions, not the rule. Arbitrarily firing someone rarely solves administrative problems.
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