| CAYMAN ISLANDS — Government employee — Unlawful dismissal — Appropriate compensation — Court holding dismissal void — No further action taken to lawfully terminate employment — Whether employee having continuing right to full salary
McLaughlin v Governor of the Cayman Islands [2007] UKPC 50
PC: Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Walker of Gestingthorpe, Baroness Hale of Richmond, Lord Carswell and Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury: 23 July 2007
When a decision to dismiss a public office holder had been held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be void, the office holder remained entitled to his full emoluments of that office until his tenure of office was lawfully ended.
The Privy Council so held in allowing an appeal by the plaintiff, Dr Astley McLaughlin, from a decision of the Court of Appeal (Zacca P, Taylor and Mottley JJA), given on 27 April 2006, allowing an appeal by the defendant, the Governor of the Cayman Islands, from an assessment of damages awarded by Smellie CJ sitting in the Grand Court of The Cayman Islands on 7 September 2005.
LORD BINGHAM, giving the judgment of the Board, said that the issue concerned the compensation payable to the plaintiff following his dismissal or purported dismissal from the Government service of the Cayman Islands on 31 December 1998. The Court of Appeal had held, in the decision under appeal, that the dismissal of the plaintiff, although unlawful, was effective in law to determine his engagement, and his only entitlement was to damages. The plaintiff had held a public office and his dismissal had been effected in breach of the rules of natural justice and in breach of the relevant public service regulations and was accordingly unlawful. The Court of Appeal had, at an earlier hearing 2002 CILR 576, declared “that the decision to dismiss him and his dismissal were void”.
It was a settled principle of law that if a public authority purported to dismiss the holder of a public office in excess of its powers, or in breach of natural justice, or unlawfully (categories which overlapped), the dismissal was, as between the public authority and the office-holder, null, void and without legal effect, at any rate once a court of competent jurisdiction had so declared or ordered. Thus the office-holder remained in office, entitled to the remuneration attaching to such office, so long as he remained ready, willing and able to render the service required of him, until his tenure of office was lawfully brought to an end by resignation or lawful dismissal.
In its judgment under appeal the Court of Appeal had sought to rewrite its first judgment by, in effect, substituting “unlawful” for “void”. But the expression “void” was apt and in no way doubtful in its meaning, and the change of language did not alter the legal result: whether described as “void” or “unlawful” the decision to dismiss and the dismissal were without legal effect. There was no analogy with wrongful dismissal, where a dismissal might be unlawful but none the less effective. The plaintiff was entitled to recover arrears of salary and payment of pension contributions until he resigned or his tenure of office lawfully came to an end. |
