Buttrose J:

This is an appeal from an Order of the Assistant Commissioner of Labour directing the appellant to pay to the Commissioner for Labour on behalf of the respondent the sum of $28.48. The appeal, in the first instance, came before Winslow J who after hearing argument referred it for the decision of a Court consisting of three Judges pursuant to the provisions of sub-section (2) of s. 20 of the Courts Ordinance (Ch. 3).

The respondent who is a clerk employed by the appellant company submitted a claim to the Assistant Commissioner for Labour for the balance of statutory holiday pay for eleven hours work on two days under s. 56 of the Clerks Employment Ordinance, 1957, (No. 14 of 1957) hereinafter referred to as 'the Ordinance'.

The position was that the respondent worked for six and a half hours on New Year's Day 1 January 1962 and four and a half hours on Thaipusam Day 22 January 1962 both of which are paid holidays specified in Sch A to the Ordinance. For these eleven hours work he was paid $30.26, that is, the single or ordinary rate in addition to his monthly salary. He maintained that he should be paid double the ordinary rate in addition to his salary and therefore claimed the balance of $30.26. The Assistant Commissioner for Labour found in favour of the respondent and ordered payment accordingly of the sum of $28.48. The difference between the amount claimed and the amount awarded being due to a miscalculation of the figures with which we are not concerned.

For the appellant it was contended that the Assistant Commissioner for Labour erred in law:

(1) in holding that upon the true interpretation of s. 36(2) of the Ordinance the respondent is entitled to double the ordinary rate of salary in addition to his salary if he is required to work on a statutory holiday;

(2) in wrongly applying the decision of the Court in the case of Tara Singh v. Chairman, Sailors' Institute Committee, Singapore [1959] MLJ 1 , to the claim; and

(3) in rejecting the recommendation contained in Article 30 of the Report by the Court of Inquiry into the dispute between the Singapore Traction Co. Ltd. and its employees dated 11 February 1956 and set out in Sessional Paper No SL 10 of 1956.

The substantial issue which arises for determination on this appeal turns on the construction of sub-section (2) of s. 36 of the Ordinance which reads as follows:

36(2) Notwithstanding the provisions of the proceeding sub-section any employee may be required by his employer to work on any holiday to which he would otherwise be entitled under the said sub-section and in such event he shall be entitled to double the ordinary rate of salary for such day's work and to a travelling allowance, if payable to him under the terms of his agreement with his employer, for one day.

Sub-section (1) of s. 36 provides, inter alia, that an employee shall be entitled to a paid holiday at his ordinary rate of salary on such of the days specified in Sch A.

If therefore an employee works on a holiday he is entitled to double his ordinary rate of salary for such day's work. The employee's entitlement to double his ordinary rate of salary for working on a holiday is extraneous to and quite independent of his salary. It is an additional payment which by statute the employer is required to make for the work his employee does on that day and the sub-section quantifies it as being double the ordinary rate of the employee's salary. It is a statutory payment as distinct from a contractual one which is made in pursuance of the terms of the contract of service.

A consideration of the scheme of the Ordinance as a whole and in particular of Pt IV thereof, I think, supports this construction.

This is a piece of social legislation for the protection of both employer and employee. Every employee is entitled under the Ordinance to one rest day a week which is normally on Sunday unless otherwise agreed. He cannot be compelled to work on that day. If however he desires to