Press Interpreter

02/09/06 -- I recently saw by chance on the web the qualifications required for taking the examination to become a public official. Two aroused my suspicion. Examinees must be between 18 and 35 years of age and must have graduated from college. As a result of these rules those older than 35 and those without a college education will lose the right to take the public officials examination. I needed to see whether depriving this group of people of the right to take the exam was indeed authorized by law. Opening to page 2, section 11 of "The Public Officials Law of the People's Republic of China," I saw that the relevant qualification requirements for public officials are "18 and older" and "has a level of education suitable to the requirements of her posting and the ability to do the work." There is no requirement that examinees be 35 or younger and have a college education. As a result, I drew the following conclusion: the qualification requirements for taking the exam are not authorized by law, but rather are illegal and must be revoked.

There have been similar problems in other areas, in which some government departments have, at their own discretion, established "qualifications" not expressly authorized by law. These kinds of "qualifications" are often unequal. Thus although on their face these actions establish "qualifications," in fact they are negations and deprivations of the right of citizens to equal treatment. This is a question of the most concrete essence of our society's guarantee of public rights. It must attract the attention of the government and of all of society.

Our society is everywhere full of inequalities created by "qualifications." "Qualifications" can make enormous fortunes: there are those who, relying on obscure "qualifications," obtain the development rights to excellent parcels of land, becoming multi-millionaires overnight. "Qualifications" can confer special rights: the children of some can spend very little to attend the very best kindergartens while others can only look over at the schools and sigh. The inequality of these kinds of "qualifications" can be of the natural or of the artificially constructed sort, but regardless of which, it violates the fundamental principle of law that "everyone is equal before the law." All ought to be banned.

Equal rights are not in fact attainable for all because in politico-economic life the resources for achieving equality are not equally shared. This means that there must be equality of opportunity. For example, not everyone enjoys the right to vote because voters must be over 18 years of age. And to be elected national chairman you must be at least 45 years old. Not everyone has these rights, but everyone will at some point turn 18 and at some point turn 45. As a result, the opportunities are equal for everyone. Thus one should not oppose all "qualifications" enactments. Rather, we must question whether enactments violate the principle of equal opportunity. Beginning in the early years of the 1950s, we built a system that divided cities from the countryside. This was due to exceedingly severe shortages in consumption resources and the lack of legal and governmental consciousness in our political thought. We artificially divided people into those with peasant residency identity papers and those with city and town residency identity papers, thereby creating enormous social inequality. This kind of factual and situational inequality still exists today. However, there is already a trend toward reducing the differences between the rights associated with the different residency identities. This proves that my nation's government is in the process of expending great and unflagging effort to eliminate inequality.

As a citizen governed by precise administrative rules that apply to all human beings, a person who discovers that the enactment of certain "qualifications" violates her equal rights can sue in court. As for the requirements to take the examination to become a public official, this law clearly violates the principles of equal opportunity. Why can't someone who is 36 take the examination? In the past there were no such restrictions on those who could test--even those with grey hair could participate. Can the department that established this rule, denying those over 35 the right to participate, give any legal justification for the change? Can it possibly prove that such a change does not violate the principles of equality? As for the issue of having a college education, is it really fair to base someone's competency just on the fact that they have a diploma? Many without college degrees have practical skills that far exceed the skills of some college graduates. Denying those who haven't graduated from college the opportunity to participate undoubtedly violates the spirit of the constitution and its guarantee of equality.

I would have thought that the test to become a public official should become available to even more people and would have hoped that efforts would be made to improve the convenience of taking the test. One way in which the test could be administered is like the TOEFL in which candidates go online at any time to take the test. If the test to become a public official were administered similarly then candidates who passed the test would enter a pool of potential employees. As needed, each department would then invite a certain number of people from that pool to take a follow up test. Those that passed the second test would then be hired. This kind of system would allow everyone an equal opportunity while giving each department a pool of urgently needed talent to draw from. This would increase the quality and effectiveness of public officials. "Qualifications" are often a superficial way of judging talent especially when examined from a constitutional perspective which guarantees equality among citizens. The administrative bodies of the government currently put forth a great deal of work into setting and checking qualifications for different posts. That time and effort would be better spent by providing services to the people than in setting and enforcing qualifications. Additionally, departments must remember their constitutional obligation to protect equality when setting qualifications for different jobs. They must check to see if there are relevant laws already in place, and they must check to see if their proposals give all citizens an equal opportunity. This is a basic principle of administering by the law.

[Full Article]

By Xin Lijian

--Translated by Joseph McMullin and Ramsi Woodcock

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Link to original article:

http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/zm/20060209/xw/sd/200602090158.asp