A Study of the Jurisdiction & Legalization of Civil Service Welfare: The Issue of “Cutting Year-end Consolation Money”
Hui-Ping Feng*
Abstract
This paper tries to explain why and how the consolation money policy, related rules and measures were made, and whether the Principle of Law Reservation can be applied to this policy. The author also tries to look at the issue from legislative points of view in a hope to provide a consolidated legal suggestion for the reference of the government in policy making.
The consolation money was originally designed as a measure to support civil servants’ livelihood because their average salary was rather low as compared to other private-sector workers before 1990’s, and this gap was gradually narrowed after the government started to raise the average salary for civil servants since the 1990s.
However, this measure for civil servants can no longer be sustained because most of our workers (especially lower-level ones) are facing the fact that their salaries have been shrinking under the threat from the global economic downturn, pushing the government to cut some welfare for civil servants and forcing them to share the economic pain.
To deal with this problem, the Executive Yuan has decided to cut the 2012 year-end consolation money for retired civil servants under the pressure from the Legislative Yuan, a move that created a big controversy especially over public law.
Keywords:legalization, the principle of legal reservation, the year-end consolation money, civil Service welfare, the principle of prohibiting re-authorization
*Executive Officer, Legal Affairs Committee, Directorate-General of Personnel Administration, Execution Yuan.
http://www.exam.gov.tw/public/Attachment/32814405252.pdf