By Evarist Baimu Nyaga Mawalla - Home

alter right or obligations enforceable in private law but only deprives a persons oflegitimate expectations procedural impropriety will normally provide the onlyground on which the decision is open to judicial review. But in any event whatprocedure will satisfy the public law requirement of procedural propriety dependsupon the subject matter of the decision the executive functions of the decisionmaker(if the decision is not that of an administrative tribunal) and the particularcircumstances in which the decision came to be made.My Lords in the instant case the immediate subject matter of the decision was achange in one of the terms of employment of civil servants employed at |GCHQThat the executive function of the minister for the Civil Service in her capacity assuch included making a decision to change any of those terms except in so far asthey related to remuneration expenses and allowances is not disputed. It doesnot seem to me to be of any practical significance whether or not as a matter ofstrict legal analysis this power is based upon the rule of constitutional law towhich I have already alluded that the employment of any civil servant my beterminated at any time without notice and that upon such termination the samecivil savant may be re-engaged on different terms. The rule of terminability ofemployment in the civil service without notice of which the existence is beyonddoubt must in any event have the consequence that the continued enjoyment bya civil servant in the future of a right under a particular term of his employmentcannot be the subject of any right enforceable by him in private law at most it canonly be legitimate expectationPrim facie. Therefore civil servants employed at GCHQ who were members ofnational trade unions had at best in December 1983 a legitimate expectation thatthey would continue to enjoy the benefits of such membership and ofrepresentation by those trade unions in any consultations and negotiations withrepresentatives of the management of that government department as tochanges in any tem of their employment. So but again prima-facie only. Theywere entitled as a matter of public law under the head of procedural propriety.Before administrative action was taken on a decision to withdraw that benefit tohave communicated to the national trade unions by which they had theretofore347