QUESTION OF PROCEDURE

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 149, 21 December 1921, Page 7

QUESTION OF PROCEDURE

OFFICERS DISMISSED FBOM POST. .OFFICE. f , ■ ( Inquiries were made by a Post representative to-day aS to the position in regard to the appeals of three officers of the Napier Post Office who had been dismissed from the service of the. Post and Telegraph Department in connection with the alleged divulgence of a cable message sent from the Napier Office 'to> South Africa, Mr., A. T. Markman, First Assistant-Secretary, stated that an official .communication had been received from the chairman of the board, Mr. E. C. Cutten, S.M., to the effect that ths board bad considered that it had no jurisdiction in the matter, since no preliminary inquiry had been held by the Department prior to the dismissals of the officers, and the appeals were' not therefore properly before it. Under those circumstances no decision could be given. ■■ '■•■.-. ....'./ The position i§ somewhat peculiar, for the Department has to face certain difficulties in deciding what procedure must now be followed. May a discharged officer be charged with an offence against the Post Office regulations, or shall it be necessary for the Department to reinstate him before taking further action T That question is now being considered. The position in regard to the fourth officer is apparently not so complicated;' for be is now suspended, and Will." b« charged in the ordinary course of. pro* cedure. • ■ ■•/ r '; -