BUsINEss
Diana Mahabir-Wyatt
I have often thought that Trinidad, and perhaps Tobago, carries a culture of anticipation in its backpack.
It even confuses the grammar of the concept of “rights” with a casual insistence that some government department or other “has the right” to give a promised food stamp to a starving, unemployed family of eight children, when it means “a responsibility”. .”
Of course, he has a responsibility, when he has promised them a ration card, to provide them with one.
But maybe a word was misspelled on the application form? Or is it presented incorrectly?
The exposed comments that appeared in the press last weekend expressed a visual denial that there is a right to education or even to equality before the law.
And one wonders, after three years of questioning, was the ration card given to anyone else? And the children, who have never been able to go to school – which another government department has a responsibility to ensure happens: can they just feign ignorance?
But the culture of expectation, like hope, continues to arise and, even unfulfilled, keeps people from rioting, burning tires, and blocking roads. At least for a while.
In industrial relations, there is a term known as legitimate expectation which, applied or misapplied, has caused some interesting disputes over the years. Especially when it applies to employees lucky enough to be employed in one or another branch of the public service, the military or what was then called the “police”.
Those who did saw themselves as employed for life, no matter what.
I actually heard a politician announce that she joined the teaching service because she knew she couldn’t be fired or lose her job as long as she had that position. After years of continuous absence from teaching, pursuing her political interests (not union interests, which are or should be, another thing) she left the service with a solid pension.
A classic example that illustrates both the cultural and legal aspects of this most interesting approach involves a police officer who actually had a legitimate expectation to advance his career by studying and obtaining a law degree while in the service. police. Many people join the service for this reason alone – not just in TT but, based on the British colonial tradition which is fundamental to regional police organisations, throughout what was once known as the British West Indies.
In this particular case, the young man had applied for a two-year study permit to enable him to qualify for a Legal Education Certificate (LEC) at Sir Hugh Wooding Law School in St Augustine.
He had already qualified for a law degree at Cave Hill. He had what he considered to be a legitimate expectation that the Police Commissioner’s office would not oppose his application for study leave, even though he had no legally enforceable right to do so.
As it turned out, his request was rejected.
In the interest of natural justice, the practice in the Caribbean is to allow judicial review of a decision made by an authority in the government service which the recipient has a reasonable basis to feel was unfair or unjust.
Lord Brightman, a member of the judicial committee of the Privy Council, a judge in
Chief Constable of North Wales v Evans (1982) All ER 141, at155 said, “Judicial review, as the words imply, is not an appeal from a decision, but a review of the manner in which the decision was made.”
The judge in the High Court of Barbados, before whom the application for judicial review was made, referred to over 23 cases from the Caribbean and the rest of the Commonwealth in reaching his decision.
The Police Commissioner in his statement stated that he had made the decision not to grant the study permit for the following reasons: “I have taken into account – his poor work ethic, his long absence from work, allegedly on sick leave, meanwhile which was at the same time. his time attending the university and his uncooperative attitude and the difficulty he created for his senior officers.”
The court found that prior to studying law, he had sat down with his two senior officers and drawn up an agreed timetable which enabled him to study and carry out his police work duties; in 2004 he had received an award for outstanding work in both theory and practice; and the allegation that he was too frequently absent from work during the 12 months of the said year was made in March of that year, not at the end of the year, and therefore did not rise to a standard of conviction that could be sustained. .
The conclusion was: “Whilst the applicant had no legally enforceable right to study leave, he had, as a matter of practice, a reasonable expectation that he would be granted leave.”
The judge added, “I can find no overriding consideration on the evidence to justify a departure from what has been prior practice. The expectation flows from the regular and established practice based on prior actions of the commissioner’s office not to challenge the award of the study permit for police officers attending the CEC”.
The officer was granted leave to study and the process by which the Barbados Police Commissioner had reached his decision was declared flawed and inconsistent with notions of justice.
Justice was done.
