Former Taiwan Provincial Government secretary for foreign affairs Kuo Kuan-ying’s (郭冠英) legal case took a surprising turn yesterday when the Taipei High Administrative Court repealed the Ministry of Civil Service’s decision to reject his application to retire and instead instructed the ministry to approve the application.
The court had not made its reasons for the ruling public as of press time last night.
Kuo was dismissed in 2009 from the now-defunct Government Information Office, which was eliminated as part of a reorganization of the Cabinet in 2012, due to commentaries referring to himself as a “high-class Mainlander,” while calling ethnic Taiwanese taibazi (台巴子, Taiwanese rednecks).
Photo: Chen Feng-li, Taipei Times
He also wrote that China should suppress Taiwanese instead of granting them political freedom once it has taken Taiwan by force.
Kuo’s dismissal carried a clause that he was ineligible to hold government office for three years.
However, Kuo was hired by the Taiwan Provincial Government as secretary for foreign affairs in 2014, but the ministry claimed the provincial government had not observed proper procedure and demanded that it provide proper documents as required under the Administrative Procedure Act (行政程序法).
The provincial government claimed the act was not applicable to Kuo’s appointment.
Kuo applied for retirement four months after being hired by the provincial government, entitling him to a NT$60,000 (US$1,900) monthly pension.
The Ministry of Justice was contacted for advice and it confirmed the eligibility of the act in Kuo’s appointment in two official notices on Jan. 30 last year, the Ministry of Civil Service said, adding that the justice ministry’s opinion was the basis for it rejecting Kuo’s retirement application.
Kuo filed an administrative lawsuit against the Ministry of Civil Service after the Public Functionary Disciplinary Sanction Commission rejected his request for an appeal.
In a telephone interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) yesterday, Kuo said that winning the lawsuit would only be a symbolic victory as it would not be enough to support his daily expenses should civil servants pensions be cut by the government as part of its reform of the pension system.
Kuo said the case had not been a question of his legal status as an employee of the Taiwan Provincial Government, but a matter of politics.
Kuo said he is concerned about the possibility of his pension being cut by the pension reforms committee, adding that he had joined the hunger strike held in the past few days in protest of the reforms.
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