LEMBAGA RAYUAN TATATERTIB PERKHIDMATAN AWAM

On the court record

The public-service disciplinary appeal body, appearing as respondent in judicial reviews of dismissals and demotions, testing procedural fairness, the duty to give reasons and delay under the 1993 conduct and discipline regulations.

Lembaga Rayuan Tatatertib Perkhidmatan Awam (the Public Service Disciplinary Appeal Board) is the body that hears appeals against disciplinary decisions in the public service, and it appears in the corpus as a respondent in judicial-review challenges to the dismissal and demotion of public officers. The matters are argued under Order 53 of the Rules of Court 2012 in the High Court.

The recurring subject is the procedural fairness of public-service discipline. In several matters officers dismissed or reduced in rank challenged the Board's decisions, and the courts examined compliance with the Public Officers (Conduct and Discipline) Regulations 1993 and related disciplinary rules. One matter concerned a dismissal following a conviction under section 15(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952; another questioned whether there had been non-compliance with regulations 25 and 26 in reporting an officer's prolonged absence, whether a second charge offended double jeopardy or prior punishment, and whether a delay from 2015 to 2021 amounted to inordinate delay or condonation.

The duty to give reasons and the conditions of valid service run through these cases. In one matter the challenge was to a dismissal made without contemporaneous reasons, raising procedural unfairness, the right to meaningful judicial review, whether statutory silence excuses the duty to give reasons, and whether the public-service rules applied to conduct committed before the officer entered the service. Another, concerning a prison officer's reduction in rank under the prison and public-officer regulations, and a Malay-language matter over whether the requirement of service by AR-registered post is mandatory and must be received personally by the officer, show the courts insisting on strict compliance with the disciplinary procedure. The Board's footprint is a focused study in the judicial supervision of public-service discipline and the fairness owed to an officer before dismissal or demotion is confirmed on appeal. The through-line is the insistence of the courts that discipline in the public service, however serious the underlying misconduct, be exercised only through a procedure that is fair, reasoned and properly served.