21
Had we decided that there was a contract, but that
the unilateral variation clause is inoperative, the result would
have been that the Crown could not alter any term of a public
officer's contract in future without his consent. It would also, in
logic, mean that it could not validly have done so in the past;
thus the contract of each serving public officer would have been
fossilized as at the date of his employment, unless by some
subsequent document he had accepted, or by subsequent conduct
he could be deemed to have accepted, such changes as might have
been introduced up to the later date. So there would be wide
variations as to the terms on which public officers are employed
and an unacceptable amount of research would be involved in
determining who was subject to what.
To
The appellants, who were under suspension at the date when proceedings were issued, would in such circumstances have
been entitled to their declaration. But we would have sought
a way of preventing the decision from imposing unacceptable
confusion on the administration of the public service.
achieve this, we would have directed that our finding that G.Rs
could not be unilaterally altered should take effect only from
the date of our decision in relation to all G.Rs other than
C.S.R. 611.
Conclusion
We have thus decided that there is a contract between
the Crown and public officers, which is variable at the will of
the Crown if the public officer's initial terms of service indicate
to him that such a power is reserved to the Crown.
From this it follows that C.S.R. 611 became a condition
of service of every such public officer on its promulgation in
October, 1977 and that we agree with the trial judge, though in
some respects for different reasons; that the appellents must fail to obtain the declarations which they seek. The appeal
is dismissed.
D. Chang & D. Fung (Francis Chains & Co.) for appellants.
Griffiths, Q.C., A.G. and Grahan (Legal Dept.) for respondent.