Former registrar goes to Privy Council

MARILIN Sammy-Wallace, former registrar of the Industrial Court, who challenged instructions given to her not to deduct taxes from the salaries of the president and vice president (VP) of the court, yesterday lost her case in the High Court against the decision to terminate her. Sammy-Wallace refused to follow advice and ordered deduction of taxes from salaries of IC president Addison Khan and VP Gladys Gafoor. She wrote to Prime Minister Patrick Manning about the matter and when her actions resulted in further conflict with Khan and Gafoor, former Chief Justice, now Privy Council judge Michael de la Bastide, intervened.

Justice Peter Jamadar delivered the ruling in the San Fernando High Court yesterday in which he held that the Judicial and Legal Services Commission (JLSC) was not biased in terminating her as IC’s registrar in January last year. In June 2002, Sammy-Wallace refused to act on a request which instructed her not to deduct taxes from the salaries of the IC’s president and VP. She refused on the ground that not deducting the taxes was contrary to law. Sammy-Wallace, who was on a year’s probation as IC’s registrar, questioned other payments made at the time without legal authority, in the accounts of the IC.

She outlined all of them in her lawsuit against the JLSC, which she filed last year. Sammy-Wallace was appointed on December 31 2002, with one year probation. However, on recommendation of the IC president in June 2003, the JLSC terminated her probation. Jamadar ruled in the San Fernando High Court that Sammy-Wallace failed to convince the court that the JLSC acted with bias in terminating her one-year probationary appointment as registrar. Clutching the 31-page judgment as she walked down the steps of the San Fernando Supreme Court yesterday, Sammy-Wallace said she intended to appeal Jamadar’s judgment all the way to the Privy Council.

She recalled de la Bastide’s words to her, “He has asked me to accept a transfer out of the IC or risk becoming another Gene Miles,” Sammy-Wallace said, “But I’m a fighter with 20 years experience as an accounting officer, and I cannot be wrong.” In the ruling, Jamadar did not deal with the conflict between Sammy-Wallace and the IC judges, but whether the JLSC acted with bias. He stated it was incomprehensible to him that anyone could conclude on the basis of the present law, that the registrar of the IC can act on matters independent of its president. Martin Daly Senior Counsel and State attorney Nadine Nabbie represented the JLSC. Sammy-Wallace was represented by attorney Khemraj Harrikissoon. The judge ordered Sammy-Wallace to pay costs of the action fit for senior and junior counsels.