The government has put forward amendments to the public servants act that will allow it to pick civil servants for key positions in the state administration. Parliament is expected to pass the changes in a fast-track procedure.
Under the amendments, the government could dismiss without cause not only directors general of individual ministers, heads of government offices and top local officials as so far, but also secretaries general of ministries and heads of offices operating within ministries.
Speaking about the changes to the press after the government session on Thursday, Minister of Public Administration Gregor Virant said the state administration would not be politicised as the result. On the contrary, this will mean depolitisation as those who cannot show political neutrality will be fired, he said.
According to the government, the new legislative solution is to put secretaries general and heads of services within a ministry on an equal footing with other senior officials in the state administration. It would also enable the government to dismiss those public servants that ministers cannot cooperate with.
The other objective of the amendments is to enable the government to transfer the dismissed officials to new positions rather than having to give them a severance pay. The changes also extend the period of notice from three to six months.
Recruitment of new staff for those positions will again be subject to competition run by the Officials' Council. Minister Virant does not expect the amendments to affect many posts, maybe about ten, while some 60 posts are actually liable to the changes.
Virant believes that ministers are responsible for their departments, including the services operating within them, and should therefore have the option to choose who they want to work with. He said he did not know of any country but the UK and Ireland with a different system.
Virant pledged the government would act responsibly in applying the amended law and would explain the reasons for the dismissal case-by-case to the public. The changes would not affect the professionalism of the state administration, but would only make it more effective.
A transfer to subordinate positions is possible in the case of mid- and low-ranking executive staff already under the current legislation. In this sense, the proposed amendments put the top executives on an equal footing with other executives in the administration and thus cancel their privileged status, according to Virant.
Civil servants' unions have already voiced their opposition to the proposed changes, saying they run contrary to efforts to professionalise public administration. Additionally, they said they only received the proposed amendments on Monday evening, while the parliamentary committee confirmed them immediately on Tuesday.
"In such a procedure, social partnership is fundamentally violated," Drago Scernjavic, the head of the trade union representing public sector employees (SDDO), stressed on Wednesday.
Minister Virant admitted on Thursday that the trade unions in fact did not have much time to examine the changes, but added that there were few changes. In his opinion, the response of SDDO union in particular was harsh and "politically motivated".
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