Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP) po­lit­i­cal leader Wat­son Duke has been strong­ly crit­i­cised for fail­ing to abide by a court or­der while serv­ing as Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent. 

The con­dem­na­tion was de­liv­ered last week by High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, who found both Duke and the PSA in con­tempt of court and fined them $35,000 each.

The con­tempt of court pro­ceed­ings stemmed from a law­suit over al­leged fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties and a fail­ure to hold non-ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions against Duke and the PSA.

Five mem­bers—Cur­tis Cuffie, Demetrius Har­ri­son, An­nisha Per­sad, Cur­tis Meade, and Du­aine He­witt—brought the case against both par­ties in ear­ly 2019.

Al­most one year af­ter the law­suit was filed, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad up­held the group’s claim. He or­dered that the prop­er pro­ce­dure for ex­pen­di­ture, un­der the union’s con­sti­tu­tion, be fol­lowed by con­ven­ing an an­nu­al gen­er­al con­fer­ence to seek ap­proval.

Ram­per­sad up­held Rule 69, which man­dates that its an­nu­al bud­get be ap­proved by the PSA’s Con­fer­ence of Del­e­gates, which con­sists of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of var­i­ous “sec­tions” that make up the union. 

The rule al­so pro­vides for the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, which con­sists of mem­bers elect­ed from the Con­fer­ence of Del­e­gates, to man­age the month-to-month spend­ing in ac­cor­dance with the ap­proved bud­get. 

Ram­per­sad or­dered that all “sec­tion” elec­tions for the se­lec­tion of mem­bers of the Gen­er­al Coun­cil be held with­in a month of his judg­ment.

Cuffie and He­witt filed a con­tempt case in De­cem­ber 2022, claim­ing that the judge’s or­ders had not been fol­lowed. The ac­tion was brought against the union, Duke, for­mer PSA gen­er­al sec­re­tary Sha­lene Su­chit-Dwari­ka, and the union’s then-trustees Dawn Gar­cia and Caray Price. 

PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste—who re­placed Duke af­ter he re­signed in late 2021 due to his short-lived role as To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) deputy chief sec­re­tary—, first vice pres­i­dent Fe­l­isha Thomas, gen­er­al sec­re­tary Kel­lon Wal­lace, deputy gen­er­al sec­re­tary Ria Ralph-Wat­son, and trustee Keb­ba Thatch­er were sub­se­quent­ly added to the claim.

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad not­ed that the con­fer­ence took place in March 2023, un­der Bap­tiste’s tenure. 
He not­ed that Bap­tiste and his team should not be held li­able, as they at­tempt­ed to com­ply and could not be said to be in fla­grant breach of his or­der. 

Deal­ing with Duke, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad not­ed that he did not take steps to en­sure com­pli­ance be­fore demit­ting of­fice. 

“What was done was in this court’s view whol­ly and woe­ful­ly in­suf­fi­cient,” he said.

“Di­rect­ing his of­fi­cers to com­ply with­out en­sur­ing that com­pli­ance, all the while man­ag­ing and con­trol­ling the first de­fen­dant with­out the ben­e­fit of a prop­er­ly con­sti­tut­ed Gen­er­al Coun­cil and with­out the over­sight of the an­nu­al gen­er­al con­fer­ence over the course of two years de­spite this court’s or­der, is high­ly rep­re­hen­si­ble,” he added.

Jus­tice Ram­per­sad fur­ther crit­i­cised Duke for fail­ing to ex­plain his ra­tio­nale for non-com­pli­ance.

“In the court’s re­spect­ful view, hav­ing re­gard to the in­cred­i­ble re­spon­si­bil­i­ties im­posed on the sec­ond de­fen­dant (Duke), he ought to have at­tend­ed be­fore this court to give ev­i­dence and lay out his thought process, es­pe­cial­ly hav­ing re­gard to the al­le­ga­tions that were made against him in the sub­stan­tive mat­ter,” he said.

In de­cid­ing what or­ders to make against Duke, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad re­ject­ed re­quests from Cuffie and He­witt to im­prison him.

“The court is of the re­spect­ful view that there is no use­ful pur­pose in im­pos­ing a sen­tence of im­pris­on­ment on the sec­ond de­fen­dant, es­pe­cial­ly since he is no longer in the po­si­tion since the end of 2021,” Jus­tice Ram­per­sad said.

He added that a fine for Duke and the PSA was more ap­pro­pri­ate.

Duke and the PSA were giv­en un­til April 16 to pay the fine. The dead­line will re­main un­less they ap­peal the de­ci­sion and ob­tain a stay of ex­e­cu­tion.

While Duke and the PSA were or­dered to pay the duo’s costs for bring­ing the con­tempt pro­ceed­ings, they (the duo) were or­dered to pay the sig­nif­i­cant costs in­curred by Bap­tiste and his team for de­fend­ing the case. 

In a re­lease, the as­so­ci­a­tion said it was sat­is­fied with the out­come.

“The as­so­ci­a­tion ex­press­es its grat­i­tude to the court for swift­ly dis­miss­ing these spu­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions brought against its cur­rent ex­ec­u­tive by the claimants,” it said.

“With this le­gal mat­ter put to rest, the PSA can chan­nel its en­er­gies en­tire­ly to­ward serv­ing its mem­bers and ad­vanc­ing the ob­jec­tives of the or­gan­i­sa­tion.”

The duo was rep­re­sent­ed by Raisa Cae­sar. The PSA, Duke, Su­chit-Dwari­ka, Gar­cia and Price were rep­re­sent­ed by Ra­jiv Per­sad, SC, John Heath, SC, Li­onel Luck­hoo, Shel­don My­coo and Danelle Singh. Ralph-Wat­son was rep­re­sent­ed by Bri­an Came­jo.