Derek Achong

Three dis­sent­ing Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers yes­ter­day scored a ma­jor vic­to­ry against their union af­ter a High Court judge ruled that their sus­pen­sions were un­law­ful. In an oral rul­ing de­liv­ered in the Port-of-Spain High?Court, Jus­tice Joan Charles said the trio's sus­pen­sion breached the rules of nat­ur­al jus­tice and was con­trary to the union's con­sti­tu­tion. Charles or­dered that the in­dus­tri­al re­la­tions of­fi­cers- Joanne Sem­per-Ca­pri­et­ta, Yvonne de Peiza and Paula Prescott-be re­in­stat­ed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect. The union was al­so or­dered to pay them their salaries for the du­ra­tion of the sus­pen­sion plus in­ter­est. The pay­ment was or­dered to be made by to­day. Charles al­so or­dered that their le­gal costs for the mat­ter be paid by the PSA, which will be dis­cussed at a hear­ing to­mor­row.

She sug­gest­ed that the ri­val fac­tions meet for me­di­a­tion talks with a view to re­solv­ing the is­sue with­out the need for com­plex lit­i­ga­tion. They were rep­re­sent­ed by a le­gal team which in­cludes Farid Scoon. At­tor­neys Ra­jiv Per­sad and John Heath rep­re­sent­ed the PSA and its pres­i­dent. Speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence at their Hen­ry Street, Port-of-Spain of­fice, the trio, along with eight oth­er sus­pend­ed ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers, said they were pleased by Charles' judg­ment. "We took no plea­sure in tak­ing our beloved union to court, but it be­came nec­es­sary," the trade union­ists said. The trio is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to work at the PSA's Aber­crom­by Street, Port-of-Spain of­fices this morn­ing. In her judg­ment, Charles said the women were not to be "ha­rassed or in­ter­fered with" on their re­turn to their posts. When asked yes­ter­day, the trio said when they re­turned to work, af­ter al­most a year's sus­pen­sion, they would adopt a "non-con­fronta­tion­al" ap­proach to­wards mem­bers of the ri­val PSA fac­tion. "For the en­tire time I was not paid a salary. I could not af­ford to sup­port my fam­i­ly," an emo­tion­al Sem­per-Ca­pri­et­ta said.

De Peiza al­so gave a har­row­ing re­cap of the months she spent while sus­pend­ed with­out pay. "I have a son who stud­ies abroad and I was not able to at­tend his grad­u­a­tion, and my daugh­ter suf­fers with cere­bral pal­sy and I was not able to car­ry her to Cana­da for treat­ment this year," de Peiza said. The mem­bers were sus­pend­ed by em­bat­tled pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke at var­i­ous dates last year. They have since filed sim­i­lar le­gal ac­tion chal­leng­ing Duke's de­ci­sion and his con­trol of the as­so­ci­a­tion. Duke was present in court for yes­ter­day's rul­ing but when con­tact­ed yes­ter­day he de­clined to com­ment on the is­sue. Sem­per-Ca­pri­et­ta was sus­pend­ed for al­leged­ly dis­obey­ing Duke's or­ders on Au­gust 10 last year, and de Peiza was sus­pend­ed eight days lat­er. Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, Prescott re­ceived no­ti­fi­ca­tion of her sus­pen­sion on Sep­tem­ber 13 last year. The eight oth­er mem­bers with pend­ing court cas­es are Rosan­na Robin­son, Ricky Ce­de­no, Rendy Be­dasie, Michael Rat­tan, Prem­nath Ramkaran, Oral Saun­ders, Demetrius Har­ri­son and Ray­mond But­ler. Charles will hear the mat­ters in Oc­to­ber and No­vem­ber.