Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke will have to wait well over a year to learn the fate of his law­suit over the re­fusal of the union to pay him a pen­sion.

High Court Judge Maris­sa Robert­son set the tri­al of Duke's case for May 18 and 19, 2027, dur­ing a sta­tus hear­ing yes­ter­day.

In June, last year, Duke filed the law­suit con­tend­ing that the union breached his em­ploy­ment con­tract by fail­ing to pay his al­leged­ly le­git­i­mate pen­sion af­ter he re­signed from the post in De­cem­ber 2021 in or­der to ful­fil his short-lived role as To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) deputy chief sec­re­tary.

Duke sought an in­junc­tion, as he claimed he is suf­fer­ing ex­treme fi­nan­cial hard­ship, in­clud­ing miss­ing mort­gage pay­ments and ac­cu­mu­lat­ing a $130,000 cred­it card debt.

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad con­sid­ered the is­sue with­out the union's in­put and grant­ed the in­junc­tion.

Af­ter be­ing served with the in­junc­tion, the union ap­plied to set it aside based on Duke not dis­clos­ing that he could be dis­en­ti­tled to a pen­sion from the PSA due to his res­ig­na­tion, and be­cause he had al­ready opt­ed to even­tu­al­ly col­lect a pen­sion from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA).

Its lawyers, Dou­glas Mendes, SC, and Kelvin Ramkissoon, al­so con­tend­ed that he failed to dis­close that he re­ceived a $203,850 gra­tu­ity from the PSA in March 2023.

Its ap­pli­ca­tion was sub­se­quent­ly grant­ed by Jus­tice Robert­son.

In Jan­u­ary, Ap­pel­late Judges Vasheist Kokaram and Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well agreed with Jus­tice Robert­son's de­ci­sion.

"Over­all, the tri­al judge’s find­ing that, on a bal­ance of jus­tice, the re­spon­dent (PSA) would suf­fer some ir­re­me­di­a­ble fi­nan­cial harm should the in­junc­tion be grant­ed was not plain­ly wrong," Jus­tice Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well said, as she not­ed that it would be un­like­ly that Duke would be able to re­im­burse the union if he even­tu­al­ly los­es his sub­stan­tive case.

"Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the judge cor­rect­ly weighed this in the bal­ance with the fact that the ap­pel­lant’s chance of suc­cess in prov­ing the mer­its of his case is not at the lev­el of strength re­quired for an in­ter­im pay­ment or­der," she added.

How­ev­er, the judges ruled that her col­league was wrong to or­der Duke to pay the $18,875 he re­ceived af­ter Jus­tice Seep­er­sad's or­der and be­fore the re­ver­sal of it, in­to court.

She not­ed that the PSA did not re­quest such in its ap­pli­ca­tion and the judge did not ex­plain her ra­tio­nale for in­clud­ing it.

Duke sought con­di­tion­al leave to pur­sue a fi­nal ap­peal be­fore the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil but was de­nied by the Ap­peal Court in Sep­tem­ber.

In his court fil­ings, Duke's lawyers, Farai Hove-Ma­sai­sai and Chelsea Ed­wards, claimed that be­fore he took charge of the union in 2009, the union's gen­er­al coun­cil passed two res­o­lu­tions on pen­sions for full-time of­fi­cers un­der the tenure of for­mer PSA pres­i­dent and Labour min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus.

One res­o­lu­tion re­moved the age re­quire­ment for re­ceiv­ing a pen­sion, mean­ing that those who served as a full-time of­fi­cer for 10 con­tin­u­ous years and held a par­tic­u­lar po­si­tion for four con­tin­u­ous years were el­i­gi­ble for a pen­sion.

The oth­er sought to in­crease pen­sion ben­e­fits from 50 per cent of the last salary an of­fi­cer re­ceived to two-thirds.

Duke's lawyers ad­mit­ted that in Sep­tem­ber 2010, the union's gen­er­al coun­cil passed an­oth­er res­o­lu­tion re­scind­ing the pre­vi­ous two on the ba­sis that on­ly the union's con­fer­ence of del­e­gates could have made the changes.

The gen­er­al coun­cil al­so passed a res­o­lu­tion to en­sure that its of­fi­cers were af­ford­ed the same re­tire­ment ben­e­fits of pub­lic ser­vants of a sim­i­lar rank and sta­tus.

Duke's lawyers al­so not­ed a de­ci­sion by the con­fer­ence in March 2004 to ap­prove pen­sion rec­om­men­da­tions.

It was rec­om­mend­ed that pen­sions be paid when a full-time of­fi­cer turns 50, with vary­ing cal­cu­la­tions based on time they served in the union.

Ed­wards claimed that when Duke re­signed from the union af­ter 12 years and at 45-years-old in De­cem­ber 2021, it was based on the un­der­stand­ing that he would re­ceive a pen­sion based on the 2009 res­o­lu­tions.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, Duke re­signed from his THA post af­ter a dis­agree­ment with THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine over fund­ing for a group of folk per­form­ers from Rox­bor­ough, who were strand­ed on a trip to New York.

Duke, who is the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), still served as the THA as­sem­bly mem­ber for Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle.

Ed­wards claimed that for­mer PSA pres­i­dent and cur­rent Labour Min­is­ter Leroy Bap­tiste gave him as­sur­ances over his pen­sion be­fore seek­ing an in­de­pen­dent le­gal opin­ion on the is­sue.

Ed­wards sug­gest­ed that the 2009 res­o­lu­tions were bind­ing, as they were not sub­se­quent­ly over­turned by the con­fer­ence.