APPEAL RIGHTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 95, 19 October 1938, Page 8

APPEAL RIGHTS

PUBLIC SERVICE

DISSATISFACTION FELT

"FERMENT CREATED"

The loss of certain rights of appeal for members of the Public Service, touched on briefly by the president at the opening of the New Zealand Public Service Association's -annual conference, is dealt with more fully in the association's report.

"Five or six hundred officers availed themselves of the right of appeal against the Commissioners' decisions in the regrading list, and as these words are written the Public Service Appeal Board is still actively engaged in hearing cases, and a large part of the general secretary's time in the last six months has been occupied acting -as1- advocate for the appellants," states the report. "Shortly after the last day on which appeals against the general regradirig could be accepted by the Public Service Commissioners, they, unfortunately for appellants, raised questions which queried the rights of appeal that the service had always understood existed, the result being that the association was compelled to engage its solicitor to argue the case for the service before the Public Service Appeal Board. Why, at this stage—eleven years after the passing of the Public Service Amendment Act^ 1927, the Public Service Commissioners should have seen fit to take this course; is not quite understandable." '■ ' . ; NON-PROMOTION APPEALS. • Under the heading of "Appeals ,t gainst non-promotion to another posiiioriregraded at\a general regrading," he report continues:—"The Commissioners contended that section 17 of the Public Service Amendment Act, 1927, does not make provision for an officer to have a right of appeal at a general regrading against the promotion of another officer to a higher class or sub-class unless the promotion is a vacancy. . . . But that an officer of the professional or clerical division does have the right of appeal in respect of the maximum salary of any position, including his own, but not the right to expect to be appointed to the position held by an officer who may have been regraded, as there has been no 'vacancy' and no 'provisional' appointment against which he can appeal. This was upheld by the Public Service Appeal Board, and in fairness to the Public Service Commissioners it. has. to be stated that a strict interpretation of this section appears to confirm the Commissioners' views. APPEALS WITHDRAWN. "The Serious effect on the Public Service of the loss of this right of appeal has been disclosed by the large number of: appellants who have been compelled to withdraw their appeals in spite of the fact that many junior officers have been regraded over their heads, with the consequent loss of their seniority. The present position is, therefore, that if at any time other than at a general fegrading, any officer is regraded under section 29, of the original Act and retained in the regraded position, or if his position is Iregraded an4 declared, vacanti; all other officers have the fight of appeal (as in a promotion appeal) *■ whichever course is adopted by the Commissioners. At a general r.egrading, however, if the . Commissioners regrade an office and thrbw ~the; position' open, a right of appeal against the officer ultimately appointed .still exists as in a promotion appeal. If, however, the Commissioners, at a general regrading appeal, merely -regrade the officer holding the position, there is no right of appeal." In addressing the conference today, the Hon. F. Fraser- intimated that any right of appeal that was thought to exist would be-considered; .•■■■■ -. GENERAL DIVISION EMPLOYEES. The appeals next: dealt with in the report are those of general division employees on the maximum scale or wage provided by the Commissioners for that group. "The Commissioners submitted," the report states, "that the Board of Appeal had no power to alter a fixed amount or scale including the maximum determined by the Commissioners as being the salary or wages for officers of the General Division, such determination having been made under sub-section 2 of section 22 of the Public Service Act, 1912. After the presentation of lengthy argument by the association's solicitor before the Appeal Board, the matter was referred to the Solicitor-General, who ruled that there is no right of appeal. Thus the service discovers today that it has been unconsciously robbed by the Amending Public Service Act of 1927 —exactly eleven years after its passing—of a right of appeal that has. been "exercised - since the original Act was passed in 1912, and has been freely used for more than a quarter of a century. It is a real blow to the many appellants affected for this lost, right of appeal was an integral part of the well-being of general division employees.' ... '.'The association proposes to take legal action in the direction of securing a declaratory judgment of the Supreme Court in this particular matter unless the Government sees fit to amend the Act to reinstate the full right of appeal i for general division employees. j "The Government is also to be ap-1 proached with a view to securing a clear-cut right of appeal against nonpromotion to any position regraded at a general regrading. "CONSIDERABLE DISCONTENT." "In the meantime, the raising of a series of legal points in regard.to rights of appeal by the present Public Service Commissioners, twenty-six years after the passing of the original Acts and eleven years after the amending legislation, has created a ferment in the Public Service which extends considerably beyond the individual officers affected. "It would be no exaggeration to say that the situation that has developed is causing considerable discontent in the Public Service, and has dimmed somewhat the satisfaction that the general regrading of the service created in the minds of the majority of public servants."

With regard to the right of appeal against the maximum salary fixed by the Commissioners, it was announced by the president of the association in opening the conference, that the association had been advised by the Government that if a right of appeal did not how exist the position would be rectm'ed.