A Leave Memorandum Nobody Can Apply
You are a junior clerk in a district education office. A one-paragraph memorandum on leave, issued by the section officer last Monday, has caused confusion in the office: three applications have already been rejected on its authority, and two staff members have come to you quoting it back at you, angrily. The section officer is on leave for four days and cannot be reached by phone. Your superintendent wants a short note on her desk before the office opens tomorrow explaining what the memorandum actually requires, where it is unclear, and how the operative paragraph should read when it is reissued as a corrigendum. You have no authority to change policy, only to remove ambiguity and fix the language. You also have the three rejected applications in front of you, one of which is a medical leave case supported by a hospital certificate. The full text of the operative paragraph is reproduced in Task 1.
1. Task 1. The memorandum reads: 'Leave shall not be granted during the current quarter except in unavoidable circumstances, and every application must reach this office at least seven days before the date of commencement. In exceptional cases the delay may be condoned by the head of office. Casual leave may be combined with medical leave only with the prior approval of the competent authority, which shall not be refused without reasons recorded in writing. Employees proceeding on leave without approval will be treated as absent, and absence beyond three days will be treated as misconduct.' Identify every point at which a reasonable reader could apply this paragraph differently from another reasonable reader, and explain what in the text causes each difference.
Read the worked answer
Four defects explain the disputes on your desk.
- 'Unavoidable circumstances' is undefined and is the only test for refusing leave in the quarter. One officer treats a family wedding as avoidable and a court summons as unavoidable; two identical applications get opposite answers, and neither officer can be shown to be wrong.
- The seven-day rule is undercut by the condonation clause. If the head of office may condone delay, a late application is not automatically invalid. A rejection made at clerical level on the seven-day ground alone is therefore not supported by the paragraph as written.
- 'Which shall not be refused' has no clear antecedent. It may attach to the approval, to the combination, or to the recording of reasons. Staff are reading it as a right to combine casual with medical leave, which the sentence does not grant.
- Two penalties for one act. 'Treated as absent' and 'treated as misconduct' are different consequences with different procedures, and the paragraph sets no threshold for choosing between them. 'Beyond three days' is also undefined: continuous or aggregate?
Note also that 'the current quarter' has no stated start date.
2. Task 2. Redraft the operative paragraph so that it has one meaning, keeps the same policy, and can be reissued as a corrigendum. Keep it under 130 words and use numbered clauses.
Read the worked answer
Corrigendum - leave
- Leave during the quarter beginning 1 July shall be granted unless the head of office records in writing that the duties of the post cannot be arranged without the employee's presence.
- Applications shall reach this office at least seven days before the proposed date of commencement.
- The head of office may accept a late application where the reason is recorded in writing. Acceptance of a late application does not by itself entitle the applicant to leave.
- Casual leave may be combined with medical leave only with the prior written approval of the competent authority. Approval shall be refused only by written order stating the reasons.
- An employee who stays away without approved leave shall be marked absent for those days. The head of office shall decide separately, and in writing, whether disciplinary action is warranted.
Each change does one job: clause 1 replaces an undefined test with a recorded one; clause 3 separates discretion from entitlement; clause 5 separates the two penalties. Nothing in the policy has been altered.
3. Task 3. One rejected application came from a clerk who applied on the 3rd for medical leave beginning on the 6th, attaching a hospital certificate. It was rejected at the counter under the seven-day rule. Under the existing text, and under your redraft, what is the correct outcome? Show your reasoning rather than the conclusion.
Read the worked answer
Under the existing text: the rejection is not supported. The paragraph gives the head of office power to condone delay in exceptional cases, and an application supported by a hospital certificate is the clearest available example of both 'exceptional' and 'unavoidable'. The counter had no authority to dispose of the application at all; the only correct action was to put the file before the head of office for a decision on condonation, and to record that it had been so put.
Under the redraft: clause 3 makes that discretion explicit and adds that acceptance of a late application does not by itself entitle the applicant to leave. So the file still goes to the head of office, but the outcome is a decision on leave, not an automatic grant. Clause 4 is irrelevant here because only medical leave is sought.
Action now: resubmit the application with the certificate on the section officer's return, and record in the note that the original rejection rested on a ground the memorandum does not actually create.