CSC wins civil court case over ‘responsible officers’ at atoll and island offices

The Civil Court has overruled the home ministry’s decision to cut allowances for ‘responsible officers’ at atoll and island offices.

The Civil Service Commission (CSC) took the home ministry to court over the matter after it rescinded the allowances of the CSC-appointed responsible officers, the highest-ranking civil servant in the island and atoll offices tasked with overseeing organisational tasks and liaising with the commission.

The court ruled that the CSC’s responsibility under the Civil Service Act was to set the “tasks, responsibilities, rights and powers of civil servants, free of outside influence,” and that there was no legal obstacle to appointing responsible officers or giving them an allowance for additional work as the appointments were made “within the bounds of the law”.

The court ordered that the directive from the home ministry to the province offices “not to carry out the duties of the civil servants appointed as responsible officers, and give them allowances, shall be invalidated.”