Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Tri­bunal (EOT) Chair­man Don­na Prow­ell-Ra­pa­hel has sig­nalled her in­ten­tion to ap­peal High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams’ judge­ment in
a law­suit over EOT lay as­ses­sor Veera Bha­jan be­ing blocked from tak­ing up her ap­point­ment.

In a press re­lease is­sued a short while ago, the EOT’s Pro­to­col De­part­ment said that while the tri­bunal does not in­tend to ap­peal the or­ders pro­nounced by Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams on Tues­day, Prow­ell-Ra­pa­hel has de­cid­ed to ap­peal the find­ings against her based on ad­vice from her le­gal team head­ed by Se­nior Coun­sel Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj.

The re­lease sug­gest­ed that Prow­ell-Raphael was ad­vised that Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams made se­ri­ous er­rors of law which pre­cip­i­tat­ed er­ro­neous de­c­la­ra­tions and the cor­re­spond­ing award of dam­ages.

“Se­nior Coun­sel ad­vised that the judge had no ju­ris­dic­tion be­cause no sus­tain­able claim with a cause of ac­tion to ob­tain dam­ages was plead­ed,” the re­lease said.

“He (Ma­haraj) fur­ther ad­vised that the awards were in­con­sis­tent with es­tab­lished prin­ci­ples of law and that the ad­verse com­ments made against the Chair­man were un­sup­port­ed by any ev­i­dence in the case,” it added.

The tri­bunal claimed that in the law­suit Bha­jan nev­er raised al­le­ga­tions of dis­crim­i­na­tion on the ba­sis of race, dis­abil­i­ty or hate.

“Hence there was nei­ther ne­ces­si­ty nor rea­son for the Tri­bunal and or the Chair­man to con­sid­er and or de­fend these scan­dalous and un­found­ed sug­ges­tions,” it said.

It claimed that the law­suit dealt with trans­paren­cy and fair­ness of leg­isla­tive ap­point­ments and sought to de­cide whether pub­lic of­fi­cers should be paid from the date of their ap­point­ments or from the date of their as­sump­tion of of­fice.

It claimed that its pol­i­cy of not pay­ing pub­lic of­fi­cers from the date of their ap­point­ments is the same that ex­ists with­in oth­er gov­ern­ment de­part­ments and there has been no change in of­fi­cial gov­ern­ment pol­i­cy.

“The un­chal­lenged facts put for­ward by the Tri­bunal was that the Tri­bunal was closed, be­cause of nu­mer­ous chal­lenges it faced (no in­ter­net, no phone ser­vice and un­safe con­di­tions and im­prop­er ven­ti­la­tion etc) and there­fore the ap­point­ment could not be fa­cil­i­tat­ed,” it said, as it main­tained that its ac­tions were not in­ju­di­cious.

“The ac­tions of the Chair­man have and con­tin­ue to be con­sis­tent­ly in­tend­ed to pro­tect the in­de­pen­dence and sur­vival of the Tri­bunal, its fi­nances and the well-be­ing of its staff in keep­ing with the oath of of­fice “with­out fear or favour”,” it said.

In her judge­ment on Tues­day, Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams ruled that the tri­bunal and Prow­ell-Raphael act­ed il­le­gal­ly and be­yond their statu­to­ry re­mit in tak­ing the ac­tion.

In ad­di­tion to is­su­ing de­c­la­ra­tions against the tri­bunal and Prow­ell-Raphael, Quin­lan-Williams or­dered that Bha­jan be paid her salary and ben­e­fits which were with­held since March, plus in­ter­est. She al­so or­dered that Bha­jan’s ap­point­ment be im­me­di­ate­ly fa­cil­i­tat­ed. 
The tri­bunal and Prow­ell-Raphael were or­dered to pay $100,000 in dam­ages for the dis­tress and em­bar­rass­ment they caused her. 
Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams al­so or­dered $250,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages to high­light the court’s strong feel­ings over what tran­spired in the case. 
“There ought to be a sense of pub­lic out­rage over what oc­curred,” Quin­lan-Williams said, as she de­scribed the at­tempts to block the ap­point­ment as dis­turb­ing and off-putting.

Quin­lan-Williams not­ed that based on the ev­i­dence be­fore her Prow­ell-Raphael nev­er spoke di­rect­ly with Bha­jan af­ter she was ap­point­ed by Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes on March 17. 
“What is up with that?” Quin­lan-Williams asked. 
She al­so ques­tioned whether Prow­ell-Raphael would re­con­sid­er her con­tin­ued role on the tri­bunal based on the out­come of the case. 
“I won­der if at the end of this saga af­ter all is said and done and when there is an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect on de­ci­sions made and ac­tions tak­en, whether the sec­ond de­fen­dant would, in a qui­et time, re­flect on whether she is the best fit for chair of the Equal Op­por­tu­ni­ty Tri­bunal,” Quin­lan-Williams said. 
Quin­lan-Williams not­ed that the chal­lenges per­sist­ed even af­ter the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al stood by the le­gal­i­ty of the ap­point­ment and sup­port­ed Bha­jan’s le­gal chal­lenge. 
“There was no re­gard to the man­date of the tri­bunal to pre­vent dis­crim­i­na­tion and to pro­mote equal op­por­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple of un­equal sta­tus. There was no re­gard for how it would look to the rest of us that a per­son who is law­ful­ly ap­point­ed by Her Ex­cel­len­cy can­not get her just dues from the EOT and its chair,” she said.

Re­porter: Derek Achong