Skip to main content

Rhodesia (Public Servants)

Volume 952: debated on Tuesday 20 June 1978

The text on this page has been created from Hansard archive content, it may contain typographical errors.

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs whom Her Majesty's Government regard as the employer of the members of the public services in Southern Rhodesia who have carried on with their normal tasks as they were instructed to do by the Governor in his proclamation at the time of the Unilateral Declaration of Independence.

As far as existing members of the public services in Southern Rhodesia are concerned, Her Majesty's Government regard the illegal regime as their employer. As the then Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs said in March 1970 in answer to Questions in the House following the purported declaration of a republic in Rhodesia:

"The former Governor's injunction has lapsed and those who continue to serve a regime which asserts illegally that Southern Rhodesia is a republic—like those appointed by the regime—cannot be regarded as serving the crown in Southern Rhodesia."—[Official Report, 2nd March 1970; Vol. 797, c. 13.]