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Academic Theories and Legal Analysis of Administrative Neutrality / Tsai Liang-wen

The political system of our country has turned from an authoritative government to a democratic government, and now the party politics is being in its shape. Thus, a solid civil service system appears to be extraordinarily critical. At present, as the government is dynamically promoting its reform and the reengineering of civil service system, the purport of civil service system should be adjusted in accordance with the purport of policies. Needless to say, restructuring of organization and function of personnel administration and strengthening of functions of civil service system are imperative issues. Above all, we should make a system to select, educate, employ, and retain talented people, promote administrative neutrality, and establish a system of value with respect to administrative ethic and responsibility of administration so as to facilitate professional and neutral civil service. Those, indeed, are the focal issues that we concern.

In our opinions,"administrative neutrality" means that a civil servant, in dealing with public affairs, shall hold a neutral, objective and fair stance and take the interests of the entire country and people or the majority into account. As for political activities, it does not refer that a civil servant should not be involved in any political matter but, however, there should be limitation on his involvement in a political struggle. In the other hand, the government should safeguard the status and rights of work of civil servants to prevent an effect by the alteration of regime.

Observation on administrative neutrality may be made from the perspectives of individual, organization, and constitutional system. Its concept has had significant influence on the development of democracy. This paper is to analyze the relation between the administrative neutrality and the democratic government, theoretical establishment of legal system for administrative neutrality, and our historical drafts with respect to administrative neutrality and the related auxiliary measures, as well as to provide suggestions for reference of various circles.