Ex-justice ministry personnel department head dismissed for bullying

Taipei, Dec. 20 (CNA) A former head of the department of personnel at the Ministry of Justice and the government's top statistics agency is set to lose her job after a performance review committee meeting found her to have engaged in bullying, it was announced Friday.

The disciplined official, surnamed Yu (游), is currently in a non-supervisory position at the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration, which announced the decision to fire her after an investigation concluded on Dec. 17 that her past behavior constituted bullying.

The ministry-level personnel agency said it launched the investigation into Yu's time as the head of personnel department at the Ministry of Justice and the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) after complaints were made anonymously online in a Facebook group.

She was found to have made degrading remarks, abused her power by making subordinates handle non-work-related personal matters, such as preparing meals for her, and publicly scolded civil servants for not replying to messages outside work hours, the personnel agency said in a statement.

Yu was first appointed to head the DGBAS' department of personnel in November 2015, served at the Ministry of Justice from June 2019 to March 2023, and then in the same post at the DGBAS from March 2023, according to a government postings database compiled by National Chengchi University and publicly available government records.

A special performance review meeting was convened Friday and decided to hand down two major demerits, which for civil servants can result in dismissal, because Yu's behavior damaged the public view of the government and civil servants and had a mental and emotional impact on her subordinates, according to the statement.

The Directorate-General of Personnel Administration said zero tolerance of bullying in the workplace is the public consensus, and apologized to individuals and their family affected by Yu's bullying.

On Dec. 13, the personnel administration launched an online platform for civil servants to make complaints about bullying at their workplace, in additional to existing channels for filing such complaints.

It followed a high-profile bullying case that emerged amid the death of a civil servant working at the Ministry of Labor on Nov. 4. His supervisor was dismissed on Nov. 20 and is currently detained for an investigation into alleged corruption, while the minister of labor at the time, Ho Pei-shan (何佩珊), resigned the same day.