President Ma Ying-jeou urged the public Sunday to view in a positive light a heated debate between the Executive Yuan and the Examination Yuan over proposed reforms to civil servant evaluations. According to Ma, there is no difference of opinion between the two government branches on reforming the existing evaluation system. Ma made the comments in spite of the fact that the Examination Yuan's proposed amendments to the Civil Servants Evaluation Act has recently drawn a backlash from public servants and stirred heated debate between the executive and examination yuans. Ma said that in a democratic society, public policy is made only after consensus is reached through public communication and rational discussion, according to Presidential Office spokesman Lo Chih-chiang. The president added that normally, the government solicits opinions from various government agencies, synthesizes different opinions and forges consensus before making a public decision, Lo said. The reform proposal aims to make the appraisal system for civil servants fair and reasonable, to reward those with excellent performance and dismiss those with poor performance in order to boost staff morale and enhance administrative efficiency, according to Ma. The president also said the existing evaluation system is unfair for those with brilliant performance but does nothing to censure those with poor performance, according to Lo. Ma said that both the yuans have agreed that correcting unfairness in the evaluation system is the key to reforming the system. The system should be revised by devising evaluation criteria that are objective and measurable and giving up the old practice that an 'A' grade in year-end evaluation is given to employees on a rotational basis. The president also said that a smooth and independent channel for filing complaints and a mechanism allowing the offsetting of merits and demerits should be established to ensure the legal rights of pubic functionaries, according to Lo. Ma suggested that a revised evaluation system should include regulations to punish chiefs of government agencies in charge of evaluations if they show favoritism in the workplace and pressure them with more responsibility to evaluate staff justly and fairly, Lo added. 