Court orders PS to pay withheld salary to former Deputy Solicitor General
-finds use of measure abuse of power
Acting Chief Justice Roxane George has ordered the Permanent Secretary (PS) of the Ministry of Legal Affairs and the Attorney General’s (AG’s) Chambers, to pay any and all salaries that were withheld from former Deputy Solicitor-General Prithima Kissoon, after finding that there was no legal basis for the sanction.
In addition, Justice George has also awarded costs in the amount of $500,000 to Kissoon, who had challenged the decision to withhold her salary and applied for an order to compel payment.
Justice George made absolute an order quashing the decision, communicated by way of a letter dated May 25th, 2017, to withhold Kissoon’s salary with immediate effect, on the grounds that it was ultra vires, an abuse of power, in breach of the rules of natural justice, whimsical, null and void. The judge also made absolute an order compelling payment of Kissoon’s salary for May, 2017, and ordered that the PS immediately facilitate payment of any and all salaries that had been withheld.
“The applicant has been made to initiate proceedings to enforce her fundamental right not to be deprived of her property, to wit her salary in circumstances where the reason for withholding her salary had absolutely no merit or basis in law. The advice given by the AG’s Chambers which the PS decided to accept appears to have been an attempt to punish the applicant while awaiting the outcome of other disciplinary proceedings that were meant to be conducted as regard other allegations against her,” the judge wrote in her decision, which was handed down last Thursday.
In a press statement that was issued yesterday, the law firm Hughes, Fields and Stoby, which represented Kissoon, noted that in May of 2017, the Attorney General, Basil Williams, caused Kissoon to be sent on “administrative leave” by the Public Service Commission (PSC), pending an investigation into her alleged conduct while she was acting as Deputy SolicitorGeneral.
The firm noted that after being sent on administrative leave by the PSC, Kissoon left the jurisdiction after applying to the PS, the Secretary of the PSC and the PS of Ministry of the Presidency, Department of the Public Service for permission to spend her leave out of the country.
It said the PS of the Ministry of Legal Affairs, at the time Delma Nedd, subsequently wrote to Kissoon’s attorney and advised him that her salary had been withheld because she had left the country without permission and that “on the directive of the Attorney General’s Chambers [she] was advised and instructed that her salary be withheld with immediate effect pending the course of disciplinary action by the Public Service Commission.”
No investigation was ever conducted, the firm pointed out.
Upon her return to Guyana, Kissoon was summoned by the PSC to attend a meeting. She did so with her attorney, Nigel Hughes, who enquired why her salary was withheld. The commissioners present denied issuing such a directive. They also did not provide any information on the alleged investigation which was to be have been conducted into the complaint about Kissoon’s work.
The law firm said that in her ruling the Chief Justice stated that it was the PSC that had sent the applicant on administrative leave and it was impermissible for the PS to usurp the jurisdiction of the PSC in deciding or giving notification of the penalty, if any, to be imposed.
The firm added that Kissoon currently has other lawsuits pending against the state for its termination of her services and actions for libel for a series of malicious statements made against her.