Derek Achong

A se­nior pub­lic ser­vant has been giv­en the green light to sue the Cab­i­net over its al­most three-month de­lay in ap­point­ing mem­bers of the Statu­to­ry Au­thor­i­ties Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (SASC).

Last Fri­day, High Court Judge Car­ol Gob­in grant­ed Michael Jo­gee leave to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view case over the de­lay, which he claims is ham­per­ing the com­mis­sion’s abil­i­ty to con­firm his sec­ond­ment to serve as a di­rec­tor of the Na­tion­al Lot­ter­ies Con­trol Board (NL­CB).

As part of her de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Gob­in deemed Jo­gee’s case fit for ur­gent and ex­pe­dit­ed hear­ing dur­ing the Ju­di­cia­ry’s on­go­ing va­ca­tion pe­ri­od.

Ac­cord­ing to his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Jo­gee, who is cur­rent­ly act­ing as an se­nior ad­min­is­tra­tive of­fi­cer in the Im­mi­gra­tion Di­vi­sion of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, was ap­point­ed to the sub­stan­tive po­si­tion of cadet force of­fi­cer in the min­istry’s Cadet Force Di­vi­sion in Ju­ly 2019.

His lawyers stat­ed that be­tween Feb­ru­ary 2017 and De­cem­ber 2020, he served as NL­CB di­rec­tor, hav­ing re­ceived eight con­sec­u­tive ap­point­ments from the SASC.

In May, this year, Jo­gee wrote to the SASC ex­press­ing his in­ter­est to serve on the NL­CB board. He claimed that the min­istry’s per­ma­nent sec­re­tary then ver­bal­ly in­formed him that the SASC had pro­posed that he be ap­point­ed on sec­ond­ment for a pe­ri­od of six months in the first in­stance and that he would be re­leased to fa­cil­i­tate his as­sump­tion of du­ties at the NL­CB.

Jo­gie claimed that he re­ceived a re­sponse from the SASC stat­ing that his sec­ond­ment could not be con­firmed, as a new com­mis­sion had not been ap­point­ed af­ter the last com­mis­sion’s term ex­pired in May.

The com­mis­sion per­forms hu­man re­source func­tions for statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties, in­clud­ing the bor­ough and city cor­po­ra­tions, the Agri­cul­ture and Zo­o­log­i­cal So­ci­eties, sev­er­al chil­dren’s homes and the NL­CB.

In the case, Jo­gee’s lawyers claim that he is be­ing se­ri­ous­ly prej­u­diced by the de­lay in ap­point­ing a new com­mis­sion.

“The ab­sence of a com­mis­sion af­fects all of­fi­cers that fall un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the com­mis­sion which is man­dat­ed to deal with is­sues per­tain­ing to ap­point­ment, pro­mo­tion, trans­fer and dis­ci­pline in the var­i­ous statu­to­ry au­thor­i­ties that fall un­der its ju­ris­dic­tion,” his lawyer Ganesh Sa­roop said.

In his ap­pli­ca­tion to deem the case ur­gent, Sa­roop claimed that the de­lay is il­le­gal and amounts to a breach of the rule of law. He al­so claimed that his client’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to pro­tec­tion of the law and equal­i­ty of treat­ment were pos­si­bly breached.

Through the law­suit, Jo­gee is seek­ing a de­c­la­ra­tion that the in­ac­tion is il­le­gal and an or­der com­pelling the ap­point­ment of the new com­mis­sion.

Jo­gee is al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Kent Sam­lal, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Gary Ramkissoon and Natasha Bis­ram.

Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste cit­ed Jo­gee’s case in a press re­lease on Thurs­day, as he claimed that the PSA had pur­sued it in Jo­gee’s name, as it was con­cerned over an al­leged at­tempt by the Min­istry of Fi­nance to give the po­si­tion to a con­sul­tant, who it claimed al­ready pro­vides ser­vices to the NL­CB.

“Hav­ing cre­at­ed this void, the Gov­ern­ment has seized the win­dow of op­por­tu­ni­ty to steal a march on the work­ers and mem­bers of the PSA by mov­ing il­le­gal­ly to ap­point a non-pub­lic of­fi­cer to run the NL­CB,” Bap­tiste said.

“In oth­er words, the Gov­ern­ment, by its in­ac­tion, cre­at­ed a con­sti­tu­tion­al cri­sis which it is now us­ing to by­pass the in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion to take ad­van­tage of the rights of in­no­cent work­ers.”

Bap­tiste al­so re­ferred to an­oth­er case in which the PSA, through cus­toms of­fi­cer Teris­sa Dho­ray, is chal­leng­ing the con­sti­tu­tion­al va­lid­i­ty of the T&T Rev­enue Act, which seeks to re­place the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion and the Board of In­land Rev­enue with the T&T Rev­enue Au­thor­i­ty. He claimed that the leg­is­la­tion breach­es the con­sti­tu­tion as it af­fects the rights of pub­lic of­fi­cers.

“The Act ul­ti­mate­ly places the reins of pow­er in­to the hands of the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance such that he is vest­ed with the au­thor­i­ty to di­rect­ly ap­point em­ploy­ees of the au­thor­i­ty or via the Board of Man­age­ment which is ap­point­ed by the said min­is­ter,” Bap­tiste said.

“This is a dan­ger­ous de­vel­op­ment in a po­lit­i­cal­ly charged and frag­ment­ed so­ci­ety such as ours and hence the PSA has filed this his­toric claim in the pub­lic in­ter­est for the pro­tec­tion of the work­ers,” he added.
Bap­tiste said he in­tends to lead by ex­am­ple by per­son­al­ly giv­ing ev­i­dence in both cas­es.

“The PSA will not stand idly by and al­low the Gov­ern­ment to tram­ple on the rights of work­ers. We de­mand jus­tice, eq­ui­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty,” he said.