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6. Can the Crown unilaterally alter its contract with public officers?

We have found the following

(a) There is a contract between the Crown and a public officer.

(b) That contract contains, by incorporation, G.Rs (which include

C.S.Rs), plus other orders and instructions which are not

relevant to this appeal but not Col. Regs.

There remains the question of whether C.S.R. 3ll forms

part of the contract of service of the appellants?

The Crown faces no difficulty in applying C.S.R. 611

to public officers appointed to the public service after the

issue of C.S.R. 611, since it was in effect when they joined

the public service. But the appellants were already

members of that service before C.S.R. 611 was promulgated.

they accepted offers of appointment, C.S.R. 611 did not form

part of their contracts.

When

The Crown, therefore, has to show that it was entitled

to vary the contract of service of serving public officers

unilaterally, by introducing a form of summary suspension from

office without pay which had not existed before.

The trial judge observed that he found it difficult

to view as part of a true contract provisions which can be

changed at will by one party alone. Thus stated, we agree with

him. In this instance, however, the contract itself contains,

as one of its express terms, a right in one of the parties to

vary any of its conditions. So the public officer, when accepting

the offer made to him, does so in the knowledge that any of its

terms can be varied by the Crown, without his agreement, whether

to his benefit or to his detriment.

It is not unusual for contracts to contain some

terms which can be altered at the option of one party only,

for example, many leases allow for an increase of rent at the

option of the landlord alone. There to trun no objection in

principle to a provision in a contract whereby one party can