Expert review of primary and secondary legislation on termination of employment in the civil service. Expert review of official reports (e.g. by the ombudsman, by the body in charge of the inspection of the civil service, if it exists, and by the civil service central co-ordination body) and other reports produced by external bodies. Analysis of legislation is supplemented with analysis of one source of quantitative data: • The percentage of civil servants whose employment relation was terminated during the year, by cause of termination (number of civil servants whose employment relation was terminated during the latest full calendar year broken down by case, as defined by the law), divided by the total number of civil servants whose employment relation was terminated during that year, multiplied by 100). Data relates to central government administration only. This quantitative data has no direct influence on the point allocation, but it helps to determine the real weight of different grounds for dismissal, thus highlighting which areas should be analysed in more detail. If there are separate provisions regulating the senior civil service, they are not assessed under this sub-indicator. As a rule, a dismissal should not take place before the expiry of a minimum period of 1.5 assessment cycles from the start of the assessment that resulted in the first negative appraisal, but the total period should not be shorter than 12 months. This is considered a sufficiently long period of time for the purposes of the assessment. Other reasons for dismissal generally acceptable for SIGMA include a court judgement, a disciplinary process, recurrent negative performance appraisals, reorganisation or downsizing. For each of the following three criteria, points are awarded (total of 6 points). Only one point is awarded for each criteria if the provisions are in place, but are of poor legal quality, allow for different interpretations and lack precision, or the process set in secondary legislation (for example related to disciplinary procedures or appraisals) does not fully guarantee decisions based on merit; or there are official, well-documented reports or reliable academic studies that show significant shortcomings in the practice of dismissals. Two points are awarded for each of the three criteria if they are fully met