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. Ocials 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 ocials 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.

27

28           

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 ocials 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 oered 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 oces 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 eect, 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-

nicant 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 .