Letter: Legality of the Civil Service code questioned
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir: If ministers are responsible to Parliament and ultimately the electorate for their actions, surely the first loyalty of civil servants is to the public? And not (to the minister in charge of their department) as Elizabeth Symonds, general secretary of First Division Civil Servants, told the Treasury and Civil Service Select Committee ('Civil servants 'can withhold the truth' ', 28 April).
As a member of the public (albeit not at large), I question the constitutional legality of the Civil Service code. That is, if Ms Symonds' interpretation of it is correct. Where does the power originate, that states a mere civil servant may mislead Parliament or the courts?
Furthermore, to claim that both Parliament and the courts are within the executive, and therefore subservient to any minister, is as absurd as claiming that the butler is the master of the house and the master the servant.
It is submitted that the Civil Service code is not law but delegated legislation at best. Even our most senile judges, it is hoped, would decide that such an interpretation was not the intention of Parliament: and convict for perjury any civil servant found not to be telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Yours faithfully,
JOHN HIRST
H. M. Prison Garth
Leyland
Lancashire
28 April
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