Me-judice
I don’t suppose you really mean to sound pompous, but I do hope you will acknowledge that there were many cogent facts stated above, long before you plonked down your two penneth. Some of us lesser mortals may well be guilty of expressing our emotions above but this is, I aver, because the subject of bonded servitude is rather an emotional one, and has been so since time immemorial.
Believe it or not (and the evidence is before you should you read this and other bonding-related threads carefully enough) most of us are painfully aware of the fact that bonding agreements are legally enforceable without the benefit of your tardy advice.
Though “[n]othing in recent EU legislation has changed this position”, you have carefully avoided expressing an opinion on what is perhaps a more important issue. The Human Rights Act 1998 is British, not EU, legislation. How do you say this Act affects the position with respect to the bonding issue?
May I enquire as to how you know that “[t]he BALPA paper referred to earlier in this thread was produced by an experienced practitioner”? Would you care to describe that practitioner’s experience to us all so that we may henceforth be more trusting of his/her advice.
As to “the golden rule” you say we should all remember, shame on you me-judice. For someone professing to be “both a lawyer and pilot”, I am astonished that you use this term so glibly when you should know from your first year studies in law that the golden rule has nothing to do with contract law but is in fact a rule of construction employed by judges with respect to statutory interpretation, namely to read same according to the ordinary meaning of the words used in the statute unless the result produces illogicality or inconsistency. The golden rule allows a judge to avoid such illogicality in statutory interpretation, but no more.
[snide remark now removed with apologies!]
Flypuppy
A very interesting contribution indeed. Thank you.
You have not said why your company finds it necessary to bond employees in the first instance.
Since you have, by your own statement, only had one employee “skip off to another company” after completing the training to which you refer, what practical value have you sought from the imposition of bonded servitude (albeit of short duration) upon your employees?
As to your having had to “persue [sic]” the aforementioned deviant for the bond, I find it more than a little interesting that his/her new employer coughed up the dough, so to speak. Does this mean that it was his/her new employer you ‘persued’, or was it in fact the employee? And, given your location as stated in your profile, is the said bonding and ‘persuing’ company Dutch or British?
As to your final questions, I think (another emotional outpouring, me-judice) the answer is that the arrangements with respect to bonding are totally unacceptable in whatever form.
[This message has been edited by tilii (edited 12 April 2001).]