Record number of disciplinary cases in public service

2011 produced the highest number of disciplinary cases treated by heads of government departments since 2006, the Public Service Commission's latest annual report has shown.

These figures suggest a possible reversal of the trend in the diminishing number of disciplinary cases that had occurred after the year 2000, when authority to take disciplinary proceedings was delegated to heads of department, the Public Service Commission annual report states.

In fact cases of discipline increased from 671 to a record 911 in 2011.  Of these, 756 cases were served by a penalty, up from 543 cases in the previous year. 

The penalties consisted in a written warning in 737 cases and in suspension without pay in 19 cases.

This reversal is particularly evident in respect of the cases served with a penalty, where the number of such cases for 2011 registered an increase of more than 39% over the previous year.

Among the measures currently being implemented to strengthen discipline in the public sector is the establishment of a Standing Disciplinary Panel in each ministry, which would be primarily composed of former public officers.

The involvement of former public officers in the disciplinary process would reduce the considerable inroads that this process made on the time of serving officers, while enabling disciplinary procedures to be  concluded more quickly.

Interdiction a burden on public purse

The suspension on half-pay of public officials pending criminal charges represents a burden on the public purse, according to the Public Service Commission.

According to the PSC suspension on half salary is a precautionary measure taken in the public interest where it is felt that officers should not be present at their place of work on account of the seriousness of the charges against them.

But such cases represent a burden on the public purse in that the interdicted officers continue to be paid half their salaries, although they are suspended from work and not delivering a service.

Moreover, those who are eventually acquitted by the Courts would be refunded the salary withheld during the entire period of interdiction.

But the PSC also recognised that the interdicted officers suffer financial hardship when they are reduced to half-pay for prolonged periods.

For this reason there were cases where the Public Service Commission decided to lift the interdiction for humanitarian reasons, although this did not imply any judgement by the Commission concerning the criminal charges against the officers concerned.

The Commission is considering the possibility of establishing definite criteria to govern both the imposition of interdiction in the first place, and the subsequent review of interdiction where court cases were prolonged beyond one year.

In December 2011 the Commission also decided that where an officer under interdiction due to criminal charges was found guilty of those charges, and those charges did not appear so serious as to warrant the officer's dismissal from the Public Service, the Commission would immediately recommend the lifting of the officer's interdiction even before it decided what disciplinary penalty was appropriate as a result of the officer's conviction. In this way the lifting of the officer's interdiction would no longer be dependent on a final decision by the Commission as to the disciplinary penalty to be imposed on the officer concerned.