Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Ma­yaro/Rio Claro Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (MR­CRC) chair­man Glen Ram and cur­rent Princes Town Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PTRC) chair­man Gowrie Roop­nar­ine have suf­fered a sec­ond de­feat in their le­gal bat­tle over a de­ci­sion to stop them from re­ceiv­ing their salaries for mi­nor lo­cal gov­ern­ment po­si­tions they held be­fore their ex­ec­u­tive roles.

Last Thurs­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Maria Wil­son, Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well and Ricky Rahim re­ject­ed an ap­peal from the duo chal­leng­ing a de­ci­sion by a judge to refuse to con­sid­er their le­gal chal­lenge.

Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well, who de­liv­ered the pan­el’s de­ci­sion, found that the judge could not be fault­ed for find­ing that their claims con­sti­tut­ed a trade dis­pute that fell with­in the ju­ris­dic­tion of the In­dus­tri­al Court.

She al­so ruled that the judge was cor­rect to re­ject part of their claim, al­leg­ing that their en­ti­tle­ment to two salaries was based on a Cab­i­net de­ci­sion.

“He was not plain­ly wrong in find­ing there was no pol­i­cy, promise or prac­tice by the re­spon­dents or by Cab­i­net on which to form a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion of earn­ings both as chair­men and as dai­ly paid work­ers,” Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said.

“Like­wise, as no such proven pol­i­cy ex­ist­ed, no le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion for con­sul­ta­tion to re­vise it arose,” she added.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, Ram was em­ployed as a dai­ly rat­ed work­er at the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion since March 2000 with a base salary as a check­er of $280.

Dur­ing the course of his em­ploy­ment, Ram was elect­ed as a lo­cal gov­ern­ment coun­cil­lor for Biche/Charu­ma, which falls un­der the MR­CRC. He was elect­ed to serve as chair­man for three years.

In 2019, he was charged with al­leged­ly so­lic­it­ing and ac­cept­ing a $1,500 bribe from a con­trac­tor. He de­nied any wrong­do­ing and com­plet­ed his term.

Roop­nar­ine was hired as a reg­u­lar ground at­ten­dant with the Pe­nal Debe Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion (PDRC) in April 2004 with a dai­ly wage in­clu­sive of a cost-of-liv­ing al­lowance of $251.

Roop­nar­ine was re­peat­ed­ly elect­ed as coun­cil­lor for New Grant/Table­land, which falls un­der the PTRC, and served as vice chair­man for one term be­fore be­ing elect­ed as chair­man for suc­ces­sive terms, in­clud­ing most re­cent­ly in 2023.

His salary and ben­e­fits for both roles in the PTRC were $15,670.

The duo filed the cas­es against the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer (CPO) and the Min­istry of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment af­ter the for­mer de­cid­ed that they could not re­ceive their salaries as dai­ly paid work­ers while re­ceiv­ing re­mu­ner­a­tion as lo­cal gov­ern­ment ex­ec­u­tives.

In the cas­es, they claimed that they had a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion to be paid for both po­si­tions based on a “Na­tion­al Elec­tions Pol­i­cy in re­spect of Dai­ly Paid Work­ers”, which was ap­proved by Cab­i­net in 1997.

They al­so claimed that the CPO was re­quired to con­sult with the Na­tion­al Union of Gov­ern­ment and Fed­er­at­ed Work­ers (NUGFW), of which they are mem­bers for their dai­ly paid roles.

Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well ruled that the men could seek re­lief from the In­dus­tri­al Court as the case dealt with terms and con­di­tions of their em­ploy­ment.

“The fact that the claims sought Con­sti­tu­tion­al re­lief in cir­cum­stances where facts are in is­sue as to what prin­ci­ples of in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions gov­ern pay­ment for work per­formed or not per­formed, pro­vid­ed fur­ther ba­sis for the Judge to con­sid­er al­ter­nate reme­dies,” she said.

She agreed with the judge that the pol­i­cy re­ferred to did not give them the en­ti­tle­ment claimed.

She re­ject­ed their re­liance on the fact that they were paid both salaries be­fore the CPO’s be­lat­ed in­ter­ven­tion.

“The fact that it took some time to de­cide on the mat­ter while the Ap­pel­lants con­tin­ued to re­ceive pay­ments both as chair­men and dai­ly paid work­ers did not amount to a rep­re­sen­ta­tion by the CPO that the chair­men were en­ti­tled to be paid for full-time work in both ca­pac­i­ties,” she said.

“More­over, the Judge du­ly con­sid­ered the ab­sur­di­ty of claim­ing to have formed a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion for dai­ly paid work pay­ment when no dai­ly paid work was per­formed,” she added.

As part of their judg­ment, the ap­peal pan­el or­dered the duo to pay $259,500 le­gal costs for the failed ap­peal.

Ram and Roop­nar­ine were rep­re­sent­ed by Khem­ra­jh Har­rikissoon, Narad Har­rikissoon, An­dre Sinanan and Nishard Mo­hammed.

The CPO and the min­istry were rep­re­sent­ed by Fyard Ho­sein, Aadam Ho­sein, Mary Davis, Mur­vani Ojah-Ma­haraj, Vin­cent Jar­dine, Ka­dine Matthew and Anala Mo­han.