Thomas v Attorney-General of Trinidad and Tobago: PC 1982

The court deprecated the ‘spoils’ system which operated within the post office.
Lord Diplock set out the purposeof the constitutional commission: ‘The whole purpose of Chapter VIII of the Constitution which bears the rubric ‘The Public Service’ is to insulate members of the civil service, the teaching service and the police service in Trinidad and Tobago from political influence exercised directly upon them by the government of the day. The means adopted for doing this was to vest in autonomous commissions, to the exclusion of any other person or authority, power to make appointments to the relevant service, promotions and transfers within the service and power to remove and exercise disciplinary control over members of the service. These autonomous commissions, although public authorities, are excluded by section 105(4)(c) from forming part of the service of the Crown.’

Judges:

Lord Diplock

Citations:

[1982] AC 113, (1981) 32 WIR 375, [1981] 3 WLR 601

Jurisdiction:

Commonwealth

Cited by:

CitedPerch, Dennie and Commissiong v The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago PC 20-Feb-2003
PC (Trinidad and Tobago) The postal system had been transferred to a company. Employees complained that they had been public servants and had lost privileges associated with that employment, and provisions of the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Crime, Constitutional, Police

Updated: 06 May 2022; Ref: scu.186584