History
Author | Christopher Rootham |
Pages | 27-51 |
HISTORY
A. INTRODUCTION
Prior to examin ing the current state of federal public ser vice labour and employ-
ment law, it is helpful to quickly rev iew the history and evolution of labour and
employment law that has governed federal public ser vants.
B. SITUATION IN BRITAIN UP TO THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY: AN EVOLUTION TOWARDS CROWN
SERVANTS AND APPOINTMENT ON THE BASIS OF
MERIT
e modern idea of a public servant — a pers on who serves her countr y as op-
posed to a particu lar person — evolved in Great Brita in during the eighteenth a nd
nineteenth centuries. Prior to t hat time, the people we wou ld now consider “civil
servants” did not owe thei r loyalt y to Great Britain, but were instead considered
to be the personal ser vants of the reigning monarch. Ocials in t he seventeenth
century were “stil l his [the monarch’s] servants, a nd not those of the Crown or
the Public.” Even thoug h the monarch was d irectly re sponsible for appointing
his personal ser vants, these ocials were not completely powerless in t heir deal-
ings with the Crown. O cials were appointed by a letter patent. erefore, t he
revocation of their appointments cou ld be — and was — reviewed by the nascent
court structure in place in England in the seventeenth century. Consequently,
they “could choose to bargain with the Crown” when the Crown sought to dis-
G.E. Aylmer,G.E. Aylmer, e King’s Servant s: e Civil Service of Charl es I, rev. ed. (London: Rout-
ledge & K. Paul, ) at .
Ibid.
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miss them, knowi ng that they could prevent — or at the very least, delay — their
dismissal t hrough court proceedings.
During the eighteent h century, the concept of the civ il service e volved so
that public ocials became servants of their particular ministers. Ministers ap-
pointed, promoted, and paid their civ il serva nts out of the revenue generated
within that pa rticula r ministr y. Civil servants a lso collected fees from citi zens
who used the part icular services oered by a mini stry, and these fees were use d
to supplement their otherwi se meager salaries.
is obviously unsati sfactory situation began to moder nize in the nineteent h
century. In , the British Pa rliament passed the rst stat ute governing the civil
service. at Act converted “ those employed in the var ious departments from
being servants of t he Ministers in whos e oces they served , to being servants
of the Crown.” e Act was also the rst ti me that Parliament dic tated the
pay for civil serva nts. Civil ser vants continued to collec t fees and other sources
of income by perfor ming their dutie s, but they also rec eived an annual s alary set
by Parliament.
In , the British government est ablished the Civil Serv ice Commission by
an Order in Council. e Order in C ouncil gave the Civil Service Comm is-
sion the authority to conduct the entr y examinations for the Br itish Civil Serv ice:
“In eect, the Order t ransferred to the Com missioners the duties of conducti ng
the examinat ions and inquirie s which had been underta ken previously by the
departments, t hereby providi ng an impartial scruti ny of nominee s.”
e reforms that occurred i n the s had a number of causes, but two
causes were more important t han others. First, the Britis h government had com-
missioned a report into its civ il service. at Report re commended, among other
things, more rigorous scr utiny of incoming civ il serva nts — not to completely
eliminate patronage, but to ensure t hat patronage was only used to appoint can-
didates who had some basic quali cations for their positions. Second, the British
militar y debacle in the Crimean war triggered a pol itical outcry demanding sig-
nicant improvement in Britis h government administr ation. e maltreatment
of British casua lties led Florence Nightinga le to help create a modern system of
nursing and hospital ca re; the admini strative malfea sance that caused ma ny of
those casua lties in the rst place forced the British government to re-e valuate
who it was appointing as civ il servants.
e Civil Serv ice Commission was st ill no gua rantee of appointment by
merit: appointment stil l remained a politica l gi. However, if a ca ndidate failed
the Civil Ser vice Commission examination, he was not appoi nted to a position.
is was a guar antee that ill iterate candidates would not become civ il service
Emmeline W. Cohen,Emmeline W. Cohen, e Growth of th e British Civil Servi ce –, d ed. (Hamden,
CT: Archon Books, ) at .
Ibid. at .
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