Leyden v Attorney General

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judgment Date: 21 December 1926
• Docket Number: (1924. No. 4.)
• Date: 21 December 1926
• Court: Supreme Court (Irish Free State)

S.C.,

Leyden

and

Attorney-General and others

Contract of service with Commissioners of National Education - Construction - Ambiguity as to amount of salary -Whether amount fixed by reference to antecedent regulations of the Commissioners - Power to vary - "Permanent salary" - War bonus -Application for fixed increase - Matter referred to Civil Service Arbitration Board - Binding effect of Board's award - Validity of subsequent reduction of salary - Transfer of jurisdiction from Commissioners of National Education to National Education Commissioners - Validity of Statutory Order - Appointments made thereunder - Action claiming a declaration of rights against a Government Department - Enforceability of contract where payment is dependent upon a grant from Parliament - Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) Act, 1922 (No. 1 of 1922), Sch. I., Arts. 73 and 80 - Adaptation of Enactments Act, 1922 (No. 2 of 1922), s. 7 (1) (3) and(4); s. 15 (1) - Provisional Government (Transfer of Functions) Order, 1922 (Stat. R. Or., 1922, No. 315) - National Education Commissioners Order, 1923 (Stat. R. Or., No. 10 of 1923.

By an agreement made in 1912 between the Commissioners of National Education and the local manager of the Central Boys' Model School of the one part and the plaintiff of the other part, the local manager agreed to employ the plaintiff as the assistant teacher of the school on the terms and conditions therein stated. Clause 7 of the agreement provided: "The salary and emoluments of the teacher are as follows - as determined by the Commissioners of National Education."The Commissioners were a body created by Royal Charter in 1845, and had from time to time made rules and regulations dealing with the work of elementary education, and, at the date when the plaintiff was appointed, rules 106 to 118 of these rules prescribed the "grade salary" and other remuneration payable to the various classes of teachers and the various grades of those classes. Under r. 108 (c) the Commissioners reserved to themselves the right to alter the rates of grade salary, and of continued good service salary from time to time with the approval of the Treasury. The plaintiff was paid the "grade salary" until the outbreak of the European war; and then was paid, with all other National teachers, various additional sums by way of war bonus. In 1920 an agitation was begun by the Irish National Teachers' Organisation to have the teachers' remuneration put on a...