The head of Hong Kong’s civil service has refused to clarify if civil servants who failed to swear allegiance to the government would be sacked.

More information would be needed before a decision could be reached on the fate of the civil servants who refused to take a newly suggested oath, Secretary for Civil Service Patrick Nip said in a Radio Television Hong Kong interview on Tuesday.

Civil servants “have the responsibility” to support government policies and should execute government decisions regardless of their personal views, he said.

Nip announced earlier this month that new recruits who joined the government after the enactment of the national security law on June 30 would be required to pledge allegiance to the city. The oath requirement would be eventually extended to cover all 180,000 civil servants, he said.

Civil servants were a part of the city’s political system and it was “unquestionable” that they should pledge allegiance to the government, Nip said in the RTHK interview.

The government would not detail actions that might violate the pledge because “allegiance” itself was a clear concept, Nip said. He also refused to clarify if calling for the chief executive or top officials to step down would be a violation, saying that it would depend on individual circumstances.

Many civil servants had expressed concern about the lack of clarity from the government, said Leung Chau-ting, chairperson of the Federation of Civil Service Union.

“We don’t even know where the red lines are,” he said. “[The government] could make up anything in the future.”

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