A Research on the Legalization of Job Substitute in the Government
Yung-Hsing Liang*
Abstract
In a government organization, every task needs to be assigned to a staff worker so the organization can operate normally. However, a worker by nature needs to take a rest whenever necessary. Therefore, a system of job substitute is required to operate a government organization.
When government employees ask for leave or when a job vacancy opens, the government needs to follow “the directions of job substitute in the government” to handle the job duties. However, this directive is part of administrative regulations and its content is not defined clearly.
The Executive Yuan and the Examination Yuan have sent their draft “Standards Act of Government employees” to the Legislative Yuan for review. Article 45 of the Standards Act authorizes the Examination Yuan to design measures for job substitute. This shows it is necessary to create a new regulation governing job substitute in the government.
The content of “the directions of job substitute in the government” emphasizes the qualifications for substituting current employees and the conditions for recruiting replacements when job vacancies are available. However, the definitions are not clear about job substitute, the responsibility, legal effects and the rights and obligations of proxies and the employees on leave. This may result in trouble in practice -- in other words, it may reduce the effectiveness of government operation.
Other than legislative exceptions, the private sectors also need workers to operate the organization and require a job substitute system for the same purpose as the government. Although their organizations are not exactly the same as the government, their job substitute system is still worth the reference by the government in the spirit of learning from the private sector.
By analyzing literature, including practice doctrines and related legislations, this paper explores the prototype model of government employee job substitute structure. Also, draft job substitute regulations are provided for reference.
Keywords: job substitute, statutory agents, the agent of the authority
* Senior Executive Officer, Directorate-General of Personnel Administration, Execution Yuan
(Legal Affairs Committee).