TNAG-0992-FCO40-1211-Policy-on-salaries-and-pensions-for-civil-service-in-Hong-Ko-1980 — Page 58

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(d) C.S.R. 611 provides for suspension without pay in other

circumstances.

(e) C.S.R. 611 does not conflict with Col. Regs.

5. Is there a contract of service between the Crown and public officers?

شد

Having decided that C.S.R. 611 does not conflict with Col.

Regs. and is, prima facie, a proper exercise of the Governor's... authority to regulate the public service under the Letters Patent, we are obliged to consider the difficult question.of what contractual relationship exists between the Crown and public officers, since if

there is such a relationship it may be in such terms and of such

effect as to inhibit the Governor from imposing C.S.R. 611 on

serving public officers.

The courts have been reluctant to attribute legal incidents

to the relationship between the Crown and its servants. Such

· reluctance was understandable so long as the fiction were maintained

that every public officer was serving the Sovereign personally and

was a member of the Royal Household. Such an assumption is hardly

appropriate to a hundred thousand. public servants working on the

coast of China, for whom, for practical purposes, their employer

is the Government of Hong Kong.

There is a clearly established rule at common law that

Crown servants are dismissible at pleasure.

This rule, however

questionable the logic for it may now be, since it confers on the

Crown as employer an autocratic position not enjoyed by other

employers, has been expressly preserved by Articles XIV and XVI,

by Col. Reg. 55 and by C.S.Rs. It is therefore clearly a part

of the relationship between the Crown and a public officer in

Hong Kong, though it can be excluded by legislation, as it has

been by Article XVIA of the Letters Patent in relation to judges.

In passing, we observe that, since Articles XIV and

XVI, and Col. Reg. 55, have the force of law and bind the

Governor, we doubt if it would be open to him to exclude the

Crown's right to dismiss et pleasure by agreement with any public

officer, either by implication from the provision of a machinery

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