The Hong Kong Civil Servants Oath Ordinance was formally gazetted on Friday (21) and came into effect, while the Hong Kong government expanded the scope of the mandatory oath of allegiance again, requiring non-civil service government employees to sign a declaration of allegiance within three weeks of the issuance of the letter on or after July 1 last year, and those who refuse to sign the declaration may be terminated from employment.
The Hong Kong government, in line with the Chinese Communist Party’s demand for the implementation of “patriots ruling Hong Kong,” earlier passed the Public Offices (Candidature and Tenure of Office) (Miscellaneous Amendments) Ordinance 2021 (the “Ordinance”) in the Legislative Council, requiring all public servants to swear to uphold the Basic Law and pledge allegiance to the HKSAR government. The Ordinance covers the oath of office of District Council members, which stipulates that public officials, including District Council members, must swear to uphold the Basic Law and allegiance to the SAR, and that if a member endangers “national security”, he or she will be deemed to have violated the oath, and the Secretary for Justice may institute legal proceedings to suspend the member from office, and disqualified persons will not be allowed to stand for election for five years.
The Hong Kong government then formally gazetted the ordinance at noon on Friday (21). Nine of them resigned, including Wan Siu-kin of Kwai Tsing District, Cheng Tat-hong of Eastern District, Tsui Tsz-mui and Wong Pak-yu of Yuen Long District, whose seats are vacant from this month; they, together with Yuen Ka-wai and Sham Ao-fai, who were ruled by the Returning Officer to be invalid and disqualified, and Kwun Tong District Councilor Hung Chun-hin, who was ruled by the court not to be duly elected, have a total of 12 District Council seats vacant.
In addition, so far about 30 people have resigned from the District Council, partly indicating that it is related to the oath of office.
At the same time, the Civil Service Bureau issued a notice that on the implementation of the National Security Law in Hong Kong, that is, on or after July 1, 2020, the non-civil service government employees whose employment contracts take effect, must sign a declaration of support for the Basic Law, allegiance to the HKSAR, loyalty and accountability to the HKSAR Government, and within three weeks of the department issued the relevant letter to sign and return the declaration; and that if an employee refuses to sign and return the declaration If an employee refuses to sign and return the declaration, he or she will be considered for termination of employment in accordance with the relevant terms of the employment contract.
According to the Legislative Council document, as of June 30, 2020, there were 11,027 full-time and 6,819 part-time contract employees employed by various government departments.
Responding to the Civil Service Bureau circular, the director general of the Federation of Civil Service Unions, Mr. Leung Chi-ting, said that non-civil service government employees are temporary contract staff, most of them are to make up for the sudden loss of vacancies, or temporary workers arranged by temporary measures, worrying that under the oath arrangement, it will prevent people with a desire to serve in short-term government jobs.
He also said that, as most non-civil service contract staff contract period of only one year, individual may only sign a few months, so do not rule out that some of the staff will soon complete the contract, simply choose not to sign the statement.
However, the Leung Chik Ting believe that most of the current contract employees are psychologically prepared to sign the sworn statement, but many employees reflected on the signing of the statement of caution, fearing that the speech will touch the red line, allegedly in violation of the “National Security Law”.
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