Derek Achong

The Privy Coun­cil yes­ter­day up­held two Court of Ap­peal judg­ments in which the ap­point­ments of two se­nior pub­lic ser­vants were found to be un­fair­ly re­voked or ve­toed by for­mer prime min­ster Patrick Man­ning.In de­liv­er­ing his 19-page judg­ment, Lord Brown said there was no ques­tion that Man­ning had act­ed oth­er­wise than in good faith in each case.He said: "The Board's de­ci­sion is sim­ply that in the very par­tic­u­lar cir­cum­stances of the two cas­es, on the ev­i­dence put be­fore the re­view­ing courts, the de­ci­sion-mak­ing process­es can be seen to have been un­fair to the re­spec­tive of­fi­cers con­cerned."Both ap­peals dealt with the pow­ers of ap­point­ment with­in the pub­lic ser­vice by a prime min­is­ter un­der sec­tion 121 of the Con­sti­tu­tion.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, who while in pri­vate prac­tice rep­re­sent­ed the pub­lic ser­vants at the Court of Ap­peal, yes­ter­day de­scribed the de­ci­sion of the Privy Coun­cil as his­toric.In a press state­ment Ram­lo­gan said: "It shows that the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is not above, but sub­ject to the law.""It is the fi­nal in­stal­ment in a se­ries of well doc­u­ment­ed cas­es in­volv­ing abuse of pow­er and un­fair­ness by Man­ning, in­clud­ing those of De­vant Ma­haraj and Mar­lene Coudray," Ram­lo­gan said.

"It is the first time that the ve­to giv­en by the con­sti­tu­tion to the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter was chal­lenged in the high­est court. The judg­ment will pro­vide guid­ance in the fu­ture", he added.In the first of the joint ap­peals, the five law lords sit­ting on com­mit­tee agreed with the Court of Ap­peal that the de­ci­sion to re­voke the ap­point­ment of Fer­oza Ramjohn as a For­eign Ser­vice Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer 11 was un­fair.

Ramjohn, who en­tered the pub­lic ser­vice in 1971, was ap­point­ed by Man­ning in May 2004 and, be­fore her ap­point­ment was re­voked in June that year, was sup­posed to be trans­ferred to the High Com­mis­sion in Lon­don.The rea­son giv­en for the re­vo­ca­tion was a BWIA Se­cu­ri­ty De­part­ment in­tel­li­gence re­port which fin­gered Ramjohn as be­ing in­volved in a con­spir­a­cy to steal a diplo­mat­ic pouch with 200 blank T&T pass­ports that was sent from Trinidad to the T&T Per­ma­nent Mis­sion in New York. Man­ning, in a let­ter to the then For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter, said the de­ci­sion to re­voke Ramjohn's ap­point­ment was to avoid dam­age to the rep­u­ta­tion of T&T.

In dis­miss­ing the ap­peal of the prime min­is­ter against the Court of Ap­peal's de­ci­sion giv­en in 2009, Lord Brown said that the re­vo­ca­tion of a per­son's for­eign post­ing due to sus­pect­ed crim­i­nal­i­ty with­out the per­son be­ing told the rea­son for the re­vo­ca­tion and giv­en a chance to re­spond was un­fair.At­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing Man­ning in the mat­ter con­tend­ed that Ramjohn was not in­formed be­cause the crim­i­nal al­le­ga­tions against her were a mat­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.The law lords, in­clud­ing Lord Phillip, Lord Mance, Lord Kerr and Lord Dy­on, dis­agreed with this ar­gu­ment.In the sec­ond part of the judg­ment, the law lords agreed with the Ap­peal Court on a de­ci­sion con­cern­ing Man­ning's ve­to of the ap­point­ment of Gan­ga Per­sad Kissoon to the post of Com­mis­sion­er of State Lands un­der sec­tion 121(5) of the con­sti­tu­tion.

In 2009, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie and Jus­tices Mar­got Warn­er and Al­lan Men­don­ca ruled that Man­ning's ve­to of the ap­point­ment of Kissoon was con­trary to the rules of nat­ur­al jus­tice.Kissoon was rec­om­mend­ed by the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion for the post in 2001 af­ter scor­ing the high­est score in the in­ter­view process.In 2002, Man­ning in ex­er­cis­ing the ve­to gave no rea­son for his de­ci­sion.It was giv­en as ev­i­dence that Man­ning sought the ad­vice of the Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter be­fore mak­ing the de­ci­sion.In 2004, the per­son who was sec­ond in the in­ter­view stage was ap­point­ed with­out op­po­si­tion by Man­ning.