Mengyin rule shields officials who act in good faith

Mengyin county in Linyi, East China's Shandong province, has become the first county in the city to issue a trial rule on exemption from liability for officials who make good-faith mistakes during reform and innovation, a move designed to ease the fear of error that holds cadres back in hard tasks.

"Duty-based exemption is not a loosening of discipline — it lets officials put down their burdens and travel light," Fang Shiliang, head of the county Party committee's organization department, told a promotion meeting.

The implementation measures spell out four forms and 11 circumstances of exemption, covering reform exploration, industrial breakthroughs, rural revitalization, business environment, risk handling and policy execution, with five conditions for relief — no red lines broken, compliant procedures, public-spirited motives, active remediation and controllable consequences — and five categories that can never be exempted, including violations of political discipline, deliberate violations and dereliction of duty. Procedures run through application, review, determination and issuance of the result. Officials cleared of liability are unaffected in performance ratings, promotion and selection, and are publicly rehabilitated; those whose cases are dismissed receive no exemption.

Practice has followed the rulebook. In February, Gaodu town investigated and dealt with the city's first case of malicious reporting after a villager repeatedly fabricated accusations against two village-level officials, and publicly cleared their names. In April, the county's petitions office applied the rule to the county supply and marketing cooperative over petition issues arising from a district demolition, granting exemption without affecting any staff member's ratings or promotion. So far the county has applied tolerance-and-correction rules in three typical cases, handled one frame-up case and cleared seven Party members and officials.

Editor：韩蒙蒙