Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke is seek­ing to pur­sue a fi­nal ap­peal over the re­fusal of the lo­cal courts to or­der the union to pay him a pen­sion while he pur­sues a law­suit over its re­fusal to pay it.

Duke’s ap­pli­ca­tion for con­di­tion­al leave to have the Unit­ed King­dom-based Privy Coun­cil con­sid­er the in­ter­im re­lief is­sue was re­vealed as his sub­stan­tive case came up for case man­age­ment be­fore Jus­tice Maris­sa Robert­son yes­ter­day morn­ing.

The ap­pli­ca­tion is still pend­ing, with the Court of Ap­peal yet to de­cide whether his lawyers had raised a valid le­gal chal­lenge that should be con­sid­ered by the coun­try’s high­est ap­pel­late court.

Dur­ing the hear­ing, Jus­tice Robert­son set dead­lines for the fil­ing of wit­ness state­ments and doc­u­ments in the case. She set No­vem­ber 13 for a pre-tri­al hear­ing but did not fix a date for the tri­al.

In June last year, Duke filed the law­suit con­tend­ing that the union breached his em­ploy­ment con­tract by fail­ing to pay his al­leged­ly le­git­i­mate pen­sion af­ter he re­signed from the post in De­cem­ber 2021 in or­der to ful­fil his short-lived role as To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) deputy chief sec­re­tary.

Duke sought an in­junc­tion, as he claimed that he was suf­fer­ing ex­treme fi­nan­cial hard­ship, in­clud­ing miss­ing mort­gage pay­ments and ac­cu­mu­lat­ing a $130,000 cred­it card debt.

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad con­sid­ered the is­sue with­out the union’s in­put and grant­ed the in­junc­tion on June 28.

Af­ter be­ing served with the in­junc­tion, the union ap­plied to set it aside based on Duke not dis­clos­ing that he could be dis­en­ti­tled to a pen­sion from the PSA due to his res­ig­na­tion and be­cause he had al­ready opt­ed to even­tu­al­ly col­lect a pen­sion from the Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (WASA).

Its lawyers Dou­glas Mendes, SC, and Kelvin Ramkissoon, al­so con­tend­ed that he failed to dis­close that he re­ceived a $203,850 gra­tu­ity from the PSA in March 2023.

Its ap­pli­ca­tion was sub­se­quent­ly grant­ed by Jus­tice Robert­son.

In Jan­u­ary, ap­pel­late judges Vasheist Kokaram and Eleanor Don­ald­son-Hon­ey­well agreed with Jus­tice Robert­son’s de­ci­sion.

How­ev­er, they ruled that their col­league was wrong to or­der Duke to pay the $18,875.00 he re­ceived af­ter Jus­tice Seep­er­sad’s or­der and be­fore her re­ver­sal of it in­to court.

They not­ed that the PSA did not re­quest such in its ap­pli­ca­tion, and the judge did not ex­plain her ra­tio­nale for in­clud­ing it.

In his court fil­ings, Duke’s lawyers Farai Hove-Ma­sai­sai and Chelsea Ed­wards claimed that be­fore he took charge of the union in 2009, the union’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil passed two res­o­lu­tions on pen­sions for full-time of­fi­cers un­der the tenure of for­mer PSA pres­i­dent and Labour Min­is­ter Jen­nifer Bap­tiste-Primus.

One res­o­lu­tion re­moved the age re­quire­ment for re­ceiv­ing a pen­sion, mean­ing that those who served as a full-time of­fi­cer for ten con­tin­u­ous years and held a par­tic­u­lar po­si­tion for four con­tin­u­ous years were el­i­gi­ble for a pen­sion.

The oth­er sought to in­crease pen­sion ben­e­fits from 50 per cent of the last salary an of­fi­cer re­ceived to two-thirds.

Duke’s lawyers ad­mit­ted that in Sep­tem­ber 2010, the union’s Gen­er­al Coun­cil passed an­oth­er res­o­lu­tion re­scind­ing the pre­vi­ous two on the ba­sis that on­ly the union’s Con­fer­ence of Del­e­gates could have made the changes.

The Gen­er­al Coun­cil al­so passed a res­o­lu­tion to en­sure that its of­fi­cers were af­ford­ed the same re­tire­ment ben­e­fits as pub­lic ser­vants of a sim­i­lar rank and sta­tus.

Duke’s lawyers al­so not­ed a de­ci­sion by the con­fer­ence in March 2004 to ap­prove pen­sion rec­om­men­da­tions.

It was rec­om­mend­ed that pen­sions be paid when a full-time of­fi­cer turned 50, with vary­ing cal­cu­la­tions based on the time they served in the union.

They claimed that when Duke re­signed from the union af­ter 12 years and at 45 years old in De­cem­ber 2021, it was based on the un­der­stand­ing that he would re­ceive a pen­sion based on the 2009 res­o­lu­tions.

They claimed that for­mer PSA pres­i­dent Leroy Bap­tiste gave him as­sur­ances over his pen­sion be­fore seek­ing an in­de­pen­dent le­gal opin­ion on the is­sue.

They sug­gest­ed that the 2009 res­o­lu­tions were bind­ing, as they were not sub­se­quent­ly over­turned by the con­fer­ence.

They point­ed out that pos­si­ble in­sol­ven­cy pro­ceed­ings against him due to his fi­nan­cial woes would mean that he would not be able to con­test the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions.

In Sep­tem­ber 2022, Duke re­signed from his THA post af­ter a dis­agree­ment with THA Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine over fund­ing for a group of folk per­form­ers from Rox­bor­ough, who were strand­ed on a trip to New York.

Duke, who is the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP), still served as the THA as­sem­bly mem­ber for Rox­bor­ough/Ar­gyle.