Secretary Sonia Chan: DSAJ helps legislative process

Coordination with the Legal Affairs Bureau when working on overall legislative planning will strengthen the legislative process, said Secretary for Administration and Justice Sonia Chan Hoi Fan, during an interview with local Chinese newspaper Macao Daily.
Chan indicated that, particularly regarding important bills, in order to prevent errors appearing in bills during the final process or to avoid the return of bills from the Legislative Assembly (AL), the government will establish directions prior to the drafting of bills.
In technical terms, the Secretary said that the government has cooperated with the AL in drafting technical legislative guidelines and, as such, this will shorten the time required to perform technical adjustments when documents are sent to the AL.
“The sharpening of the knife is to assist the woodcutter; we have to sharpen the knife well, and to complete our overall planning by not rushing it,” the Secretary said to Macao Daily.
The Secretary added that, with the current load of bills that need deliberation in this legislative year, the government is considering to not hand in the bills related to consumer protection and taxi regulations to the AL.

New systems
The secretary, meanwhile, revealed her agreement with upgrading the responsibilities of the Office for Personal Data Protection and, as such, to avoid hindrances during operations or cross-border cooperation.
Chan also noted that due to the heavy work load of the Identification Bureau (DSI), with more than one million residents visiting the bureau in a year, the government is considering setting up a new department within the DSI to manage public reception work.
When asked about the current announcement that the government is recruiting senior technicians, Chan explained this year’s “Focus Recruitment” system has a newly simplified process that separates recruitment into two sections. The new system prevents the re-submission of documents by applicants to related departments, said the secretary. She added that the digitalisation also increases the efficiency of applications.
Due to a lack of a fixed schedule and planned frequency, Chan explained that it is not known when the next recruitment opportunities will be available if people missed out this time.