Judges, magistrates need pay raise: lawmakers

2011-11 -24
From: Macau Daily Times

A total of four judges were recently appointed and will receive a salary of around MOP 45,000, which is too low according to lawmakers

Salaries of judges and magistrates of the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) have remained unchanged since the handover and must be updated, lawmakers urged yesterday. The secretary for Administration and Justice Florinda Chan pledged to further study the issue, but made no other commitment.
The issue was brought into public light in the opening of the judiciary year last month by the president of local courts Sam Ho Fai. He claimed that newly appointed judges and magistrates are being underpaid when compared to the wages of the Administrations legal advisors.
Wages of local civil servants have been raised four times since 2000 and are likely to be updated again next year, although there has been no official confirmation of a future raise.
When delivering the 2012 Policy Address, Chief Executive Fernando Chui Sai On said he would prefer not to comment on this issue, given that judges and magistrates wages are attached to his salary.
Yesterday, during a debate in the Legislative Assembly (AL), Melinda Chan Mei Yi recalled the calls made by the president of the Final Court Appeal and asked whether or not it is possible to detach judges and prosecutors wages from the Chief Executives own salary.
Now that the government plans to establish a civil service pay council to set the automatic adjustment of public workers salaries next year, the directly-elected lawmaker asked if the secretary would pay any special attention to the situation of judges and magistrates.
Florinda Chan vowed to study the problem next year along with the creation of the new mechanism for increasing public workers pay amounts.
We will study the possibility of detaching magistrates salaries from that of the Chief Executive in 2012. We will take that into account in the study we are about to start, Chan said.
She went on to emphasise that, I cannot say if there is going to be a detachment or not, but we will study that within the new council. The secretary added that in 2009 the salaries of the heads of public departments were also updated.
Currently, the Macau SAR Chief Executive earns over MOP 175,000 per month, while the remuneration of a secretary is about MOP 121,000, including expenses. The salary of the president of the Final Appeal Court is 80 percent of the Chief Executives wage, but it excludes allowances for expenses.
Taking into account that the Chief Executive basic salary is MOP 129,740, Sam Ho Fai gets a basic wage of some MOP 103,000 while the MPs prosecutor-general receives some MOP 97,000 (75 percent).
However, judges and magistrates with three years of experience or less receive MOP 45,000, 35 percent of the SAR top-officials salary. Those with more than three years experience get approximately MOP 58,000. A magistrate with 18 years on the job earns 60 percent of the top-government officials salary, accounting for around MOP 77,800. And these are the numbers that lawmakers would like to see updated next year.
Ung Choi Kun, another directly-elected member of the AL, also highlighted that courts and the MP are facing a lack of space and need exclusive facilities, instead of being based in commercial buildings. It is a concern that has also been expressed by the head of the local courts and the prosecutor-general. However, the secretary did not answer to this question.
In the final debate of the 2012 Policy Address for the area of Administration and Justice, lawmakers continued to voice the same concerns they raised on the first day.
They reiterated their questions regarding the need to update civil servants wages and were informed by the secretary that the administration will study the implementation of the new mechanism for updating the wages in line with inflation.
Members of the AL also criticised the growing number of public workers, their lack of quality and overlap of duties in different public departments. This year, the Chief Executive announced that the government will launch a study into restructuring the whole Public Administration, but Chan did not expand on this issue.

Copyright Macau Daily Times