Costs unknown in expat fight
COSTS for the legal battle with expatriate civil servants seeking a judicial review of the controversial localisation policy have not been estimated, the Deputy Secretary for the Civil Service, Thomas Tso Man-tai, said yesterday.
The Association of Expatriate Civil Servants last week filed an application for a judicial review in the High Court, arguing that the localisation policy should be declared invalid because it breached the Bill of Rights.
Mr Tso said the Government had not received information about the expatriates' application.
At a forum yesterday, association spokesman Andrew Chee Sung-thong said the Government's recently announced proposal to open about 600 senior expatriate contract posts for competition next year was unfair to expatriate civil servants.
Although both expats and locals could compete for the positions, Mr Chee said that, unlike their local counterparts, expatriates could not choose to switch to permanent terms.
'A lot of expatriates have localised themselves and they consider Hong Kong their home,' he said. 'It's unfair that they cannot have a permanent job in the Government.' Mr Tso said the setting up of contract posts was only a transitional arrangement for some posts.
