DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A for­mer man­ag­er at the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion (RIC) has re­ceived a life­line in her bid to pur­sue a wrong­ful ter­mi­na­tion case.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment late last week, Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad up­held He­len Pe­ru’s law­suit over a de­ci­sion by the Reg­is­tra­tion, Recog­ni­tion, and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Board (RRCB) not to clas­si­fy her as a work­er ca­pa­ble of bring­ing a case through a trade union be­fore the In­dus­tri­al Court.

Pe­ru, through the Sanc­tu­ary Work­ers’ Union, brought a trade dis­pute af­ter her fi­nal one-year con­tract as the com­mis­sion’s Hu­man Re­sources and Ad­min­is­tra­tion Man­ag­er end­ed in Au­gust 2018 and was not re­newed.

The com­mis­sion ob­ject­ed, claim­ing that Pe­ru could not be con­sid­ered a work­er un­der the In­dus­tri­al Re­la­tions Act (IRA) be­cause of her su­per­vi­so­ry po­si­tion.

Af­ter the RRCB up­held the ob­jec­tion, Pe­ru pur­sued a ju­di­cial re­view ap­pli­ca­tion for a High Court Judge to re­view the de­ci­sion.

In the case, Pe­ru’s lawyers, led by at­tor­ney Kiel Tak­lals­ingh, claimed that the de­ci­sion did not co­in­cide with the clear pro­vi­sions of the Reg­u­lat­ed In­dus­tries Com­mis­sion Act (RI­CA), which es­tab­lished the com­mis­sion that reg­u­lates pub­lic util­i­ties, in­clud­ing mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions on rate in­creas­es that have to be ap­proved by the Cab­i­net.

“Pe­ru is nei­ther a com­mis­sion­er nor an ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor and can­not be con­strued as any­thing but a work­er for the pur­pos­es of the IRA,” they said.

Stat­ing that Pe­ru had no in­de­pen­dent au­ton­o­my in her pre­vi­ous role, they said: “She could nei­ther cre­ate nor im­ple­ment pol­i­cy with­out di­rect in­struc­tions.”

“Sim­ply mak­ing rec­om­men­da­tions and pro­vid­ing guide­lines did not give her an ef­fec­tive voice or make her re­spon­si­ble for the for­mu­la­tion of pol­i­cy,” they added.

In his de­ci­sion, Jus­tice Ram­per­sad ruled that the RRCB’s de­ci­sion was un­law­ful.

He quashed the de­ci­sion and or­dered that the RRCB re­con­sid­er it based on the pro­vi­sions of the RI­CA, which dis­tin­guish­es be­tween the up­per-tier man­age­ment and em­ploy­ees of the com­mis­sion.

The RRCB was al­so or­dered to pay the le­gal costs in­curred by Pe­ru and the union in pur­su­ing the le­gal chal­lenge.

Pe­ru and the union were al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Kristy Mo­han and Keron Ramkhal­whan. The RRCB was rep­re­sent­ed by Chelsea Downes, Avion Ro­main, and Evan­na Welch.