PUBLIC OFFICERS

Evening Star, Issue 15517, 12 June 1914, Page 8

PUBLIC OFFICERS

AND TIEIR RIGHT TO APPEAL. The judgment given by the Chief Justice (Sir Robert Stput) at Wellington yesterday in regard to the interpretation of certain provisions in the Public Service Act, 1913. throws open the door of the right of officers to appeal v*ify widely. His Honor, in the course of his decision, said:—"The word 'promotion' means and includes the change to a new office, and by our Acts Interpretation Act, 1908, every provision in a statute is to receive such fair, large, and liberal construction and interpretation as will best ensure the attainment of the object of the Act, and of such provision or enactment according to its true intent, meaning, and spirit. Promotion meaning, as it does, appointment

to a higher office, I do not know any authority that would warrant mo in limiting its true meaning. Further, the general intent of the statute appears to me to give a broad and liberal appeal to Civil servants. There need arise no inconvenience if application* «*$ -vsked for, and if the final appointment f« not made until after 30 days-after the decision has been CSiae to; and it is not,, therefore, a case in which tho maxim nb inconvenient! can be applied. Lord Halsbury said, in Cooke

v. Charles A. Voneler and Co. (1901, A.C. 103, 107), that a court of law has tip jurisdiction to disregard what the Legislature aas enacted. It cannot balance one inconvenience against, another inconvenience, or choose between alternatives. The words in this statute are clear, and it does iiot appear to me that, by reading ' promotion' as meaning ' promotion,' any greater inconvenience can arise than may arise in carrying out the other provisions of section 31. '