Report No. 53
11. Possible origin of the rule.-
It may be that the provision in the present Act (and its predecessors) was suggested by the general rule of the common law that a civil servant cannot sue the Crown for pay.1
Once engaged, in law, the civil servant holds his position at pleasure.2 The legal nature of the civil servant's engagement is ambiguous.3
It may be that to some extent the English rule was derived from the immunity of the Crown from proceedings in Court (as it existed before the Crown Proceedings Act, 1947).
1. Richardson Incidents of the Crown Servants Relationship, (1955) 33 Can. Bar Rev. 459.
2. Riordan v. War Office, (1959) 3 All ER 552: (1960) 3 All ER 774n. (CA), noted by Grunfield in (1960) 23 Modern Law Review 194.
3. (a) I.R.C. v. Hambrook, (1956) 2 QB 641, and the cases there cited;
(b) Marks v. Commonwealth, (1964. 111 CLR 549; and Blair in (1958) 21 MLR 265.
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