Black Immigrant Daily News

News

File photo

THE COURT of Appeal has set aside a judge’s ruling that a requirement for a trade union to have a bank account was illegal.

In November, Justice Joan Charles granted several declarations to a former bank worker whose challenge of his dismissal was stymied by an illegal policy of the Registration, Recognition and Certification Board.

Apart from ruling that the policy was illegal, she also ordered the board to certify that Mitoonlal Persad was a member in good standing with the Sanctuary Workers Trade Union.

In her ruling, Charles said the board’s requirement that Persad and the union comply with a practice note “was to debar any trade union from operating without a bank account,” when this was not prescribed by the Industrial Relations Act (IRA).

However, on Wednesday, Justices of Appeal Gregory Smith, Malcolm Holdip and Vasheist Kokaram said Charles’s findings were wrong.

In an oral decision, Smith, who delivered it, said the evidence in the case did not support the judge’s conclusion on the RRCB’s policy.

Charles had said the act only provided that a worker should be a member in good standing of a union and that the union followed sound accounting procedures and practices. She said introducing the requirement for a union to have a bank account was illegal, as it breached the act.

However, Smith said the court was excluded from expounding on the board’s functions as set out in the act. He said the board was the sole authority to set out, interpret and apply the provisions of the act, though a court can enquire into decisions that were ultra vires or in breach.

“All questions about membership and good standing shall be determined by the board,” he said.

Smith said Charles was wrong when she deemed the RRCB’s policy ultra vires, setting aside that decision.

He also said the RRCB had no duty after making a decision, but had to ensure the complaining party knew the allegations against them and was given an opportunity to make representations, and fairly consider them.

In this case, he said the parties knew the allegations against them – that the lack of a bank account could be in breach of the board’s procedures to follow sound accounting procedures and practices – so there was no breach of natural justice.

The judges also dismissed Persad and Sanctuary’s judicial-review application.

Persad had asked the court to review the board’s decision to deem him not in good standing with the union because the latter did not have a bank account when he tried to challenge his dismissal from RBC in 2019 in the Industrial Court.

He complained that the decision deprived him of the right of access to justice.

Both Persad and the union took the board to court, arguing there was no prevailing standard accounting practice that mandates any organisation to have a bank account.

The RRCB was represented by attorney Coreen Findley.Kiel Taklalsingh, Stefan Ramkissoon and Rhea Khan represented Persad and Sanctuary. The union intends to appeal the decision to the Privy Council.

In evidence before the court, Devant Maharaj, president of the union, had said when the union was incorporated in 2017, as a new trade union its membership was small, and a bank account was not required at that stage.

He said the board had inspected the union’s written books and records and raised no issue on the accuracy or authenticity of the records.

Maharaj also said at no time did the board say the union was in breach of the IRA and a practice note meant to ensure compliance with the act.

The board’s evidence was that the note reinforced the longstanding practice that a union should deposit fees and contributions into a bank account and have evidence of the transactions. This, it maintained, made for transparency and proper and sound financial accountability and eliminated the potential for fraudulent activities associated with money.

In her ruling, Charles said she agreed with Persad and the union’s attorneys that the board practice was ultra vires Section 34 of the IRA.

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

News

MALE students who repeatedly commit infractions in school, face compulsory enrolment into the Military Led Academic Training (MiLAT) programme.

This was confirmed on Thursday by the Education Ministry which, in a press release, added that this course of action is among several strategies in the revised national school discipline matrix, approved for implementation in all schools from the 2022/2023 academic year.

Cabinet has approved that with effect from academic year 2022/2023, male students who repeatedly commit major or severe infractions, and who are therefore in line for expulsion from school, will be recommended by the ministry to the programme.

The ministry claimed that this programme has been proven to effect positive behaviour modification of students whilst they pursue academic development in a quasi-military environment.

Students pursue full certification in the Caribbean Secondary Examinations Council (CSEC) examinations and have exposure to elective skills, with the ability to pursue higher levels of education and training.

Compulsory education is between the ages of five and sixteen 16, and as such, students under the age of 16 who are recommended to MiLAT must compulsorily attend.

Students who are repeat offenders above the age of 16, and are similarly recommended to MiLAT, will not be mandated to attend, but all efforts will be made to strongly encourage it.

The ministries of education and youth development will formalise this arrangement with the signing of a memorandum of understanding.

The MOU will specify amended conditions for enrolment of recommended students, including a relaxation of the age requirement, removal of the need for an admission examination, and variation of the intake periods.

MiLAT is expected to assist young males in transforming the trajectory of their lives. The ministry said it recognises that a solution is needed for young female students, with similar behavioural challenges, and will give support for a suitable expansion of the MiLAT programme.

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

NewsAmericasNow.com

Black Immigrant Daily News

By Sir Ronald Sanders 

(The writer is Antigua and Barbuda’s Ambassador to the United States of America and the Organization of American States.   He is also a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and Massey College in the University of Toronto) 

On September 23, at the 77th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, made a clear and unequivocal statement, concerning the impact of Climate Change.

He said: “Mr. President, the effects of global warming are universal; they reach every country. But it is vital that we all understand that, in as much as global warming is universal, its damaging effects are not the same; the burden falls mostly on the poor in small developing nations, such as mine. That is why, as the representative of the people of Antigua and Barbuda, I must stand up for their rights; including their right to livelihoods and to life.”

Prime Minister Browne continued: “My voice cannot be stilled while danger gathers in the skies above my small and vulnerable country.  I have no choice but to fight unrelentingly for climate justice”.

The statement by the Antigua and Barbuda leader resonates with all leaders of small island states across the world who are frustrated with the failure of the world’s worst polluting nations to honour their pledges to provide funds for adjustment and for building resilience to the extreme weather conditions, which their actions are causing.

More particularly, the leaders of small island states are demonstrating their readiness to fight back in the face of disregard for the persistent loss and damage they are experiencing without any effort to compensate them.

Thus, Vanuatu is seeking the approval of the UN General Assembly, during this current session, for an opinion by the International Court of Justice on the rights of present and future generations to be protected from the impacts of climate change.

Similarly, Antigua and Barbuda along with Tuvalu, Palau, and Niue have established the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (COSIS), which is registered with the UN.

The objective of the Commission is to seek an advisory opinion directly from the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on compensation for persistent loss and damage caused by Climate Change.

The Vanuatu initiative, and the Commission established by Antigua and Barbuda and three other small islands, reflect their joint frustration with the failures of the COP process to address the damage being done to small countries.

The efforts of these small countries are winning active support from international legal experts.  A team of 17 highly regarded international lawyers has joined COSIS to provide legal advice on the approach to ITLOS.

There is also wider support from organizations such as the Commonwealth Foundation and “The Stop Ecocide Foundation”, a charitable fundraising and commissioning body, which was founded with the intention of getting Ecocide recognized as an international crime at the International Criminal Court (ICC).   The Ecocide Foundation is partnering with “Stop Ecocide International” – a panel of expert lawyers who want to see ecocide outlawed internationally.

“Ecocide” is defined as “unlawful or wanton acts committed with knowledge that there is a substantial likelihood of severe and either widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”. Given the wide body of evidence, gathered by international environmental experts, there can be no government of any country that can claim, with any credibility, that they do not know that pollution is causing “widespread or long-term damage to the environment being caused by those acts”.

But there is still a long road ahead before the Ecocide definition could be adopted by the court. One of the court’s 123 member countries would need to submit the definition to the United Nations Secretary-General, triggering a formal process that could lead to an amendment of the Rome Statute, which sets the court’s rules.

There would, of course, be great opposition to this by the world’s greatest polluters.  Consequently, enormous pressure would be put on small states not to pursue any of the legal initiatives now being contemplated by Vanuatu, by Antigua and Barbuda, Tuvalu, Palau and Niue, and by The Ecocide Foundation.

However, as I told a “Virtual Islands Summit 2022 Symposium”, organized by the Stop Ecocide Foundation on September 29: “Something has to give in this unlevel playing field in which small island states and low-lying coastal states are made to suffer.  The peoples and governments of small island states cannot sit back while their countries are destroyed and they, themselves, are dislocated from their homelands”.

A global alliance of small island states and states with low lying coastlands can be a powerful global force for the protection of each other, and of all life on Earth.

It calls for Caribbean countries, especially the most vulnerable such as The Bahamas, and the smaller islands of the Eastern Caribbean, to join the COSIS and Stop Ecocide initiatives.  These countries have the most to lose; therefore, they must fight the hardest.

The destruction wreaked by Hurricane Fiona in the Eastern Provinces of Canada, and the decimation and loss of lives in Florida and South Carolina in the United States, over the last two weeks, should, at last, persuade the remaining doubters in governments and industry, in these two countries, that their present circumstances are bad, and their future will be worse unless they also take immediate action.

Prime Minister Browne spoke for the peoples of all small states when he told the UN general assembly: “My voice cannot be stilled while danger gathers in the skies above my small and vulnerable country”.

There is a global train for climate justice that is now running on an international railroad; all small countries should board it.

Responses and previous commentaries: www.sirronaldsanders.com 

CLICK HERE TO JOIN OUR WHATSAPP GROUP

NewsAmericasNow.com