Derek Achong

Jus­tice Joan Charles ruled yes­ter­day the High Court had the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear a law­suit brought by five ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers of the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) chal­leng­ing their sus­pen­sion. Charles gave the rul­ing on the pre­lim­i­nary is­sue while pre­sid­ing in the Port-of-Spain High Court.

The of­fi­cers-first vice-pres­i­dent Rosan­na Robin­son, deputy gen­er­al sec­re­tary Rendy Be­dasie, Oral Saun­ders and trustees Demetrius Har­ri­son and Ray­mond But­ler-are ask­ing the court to over­rule a de­ci­sion by PSA pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke to sus­pend them from the union's ex­ec­u­tive. The of­fi­cers con­tend­ed they were elect­ed by the mem­ber­ship of the PSA and could not be sus­pend­ed by the pres­i­dent.

As part of the pre­lim­i­nary is­sue, Charles was asked to de­ter­mine whether the court had the ju­ris­dic­tion to hear the law­suit or whether the PSA's dis­ci­pli­nary tri­bunal was the body that should hear the of­fi­cers' com­plaints. Saun­ders was sus­pend­ed in April 2010 and the oth­ers in Ju­ly 2010. The tri­bunal has not been con­vened since their sus­pen­sion.

In re­sponse, Duke's lawyers claim un­der the as­so­ci­a­tion's con­sti­tu­tion Duke, as pres­i­dent, is giv­en the pow­er to re­scind ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers' ap­point­ments. Charles is pre­sid­ing over a se­ries of law­suits brought by both fac­tions with­in the as­so­ci­a­tion over its lead­er­ship.

Last week, Charles re­served dates be­tween Oc­to­ber 29 and No­vem­ber 2 dur­ing which le­gal sub­mis­sions will be made by at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Duke and ten dis­sent­ing ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers. In that law­suit, the mem­bers claim a spe­cial gen­er­al meet­ing last Sep­tem­ber 2, at which it was de­cid­ed Duke should be ex­pelled from the as­so­ci­a­tion, with ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Robin­son as­sum­ing the role of in­ter­im pres­i­dent, was law­ful.

Fol­low­ing the meet­ing, Duke's lawyers filed le­gal ac­tion which sought to deem il­le­gal the meet­ing and the de­ci­sions tak­en at it. The group's le­gal team in­cludes at­tor­neys Kei­th Scot­land, Ravi Heffes-Doon and Asha Watkins-Montserin, while Ra­jiv Per­sad and John Heath rep­re­sent­ed Duke and the union.