A group of Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion (PSA) mem­bers has scored a le­gal vic­to­ry in their bid to re­solve long-stand­ing fi­nan­cial and ad­min­is­tra­tive is­sues with­in the or­gan­i­sa­tion. 

On Fri­day, High Court Judge Devin­dra Ram­per­sad up­held a claim over re­cent al­leged breach­es of the union's con­sti­tu­tion brought by PSA Gen­er­al Coun­cil mem­bers Cur­tis Cuffie, Demetrius Har­ri­son, An­nisha Per­sad, Cur­tis Meade, and Du­aine He­witt. 

In their law­suit, filed al­most ex­act­ly a year ago, the group con­tend­ed that PSA Pres­i­dent Wat­son Duke and oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers breached the union's con­sti­tu­tion by fail­ing to ad­here to its pol­i­cy for ap­prov­ing ex­pen­di­ture and elect­ing Gen­er­al Coun­cil mem­bers. 

Ram­per­sad up­held Rule 69, which man­dates that its an­nu­al bud­get be ap­proved by the PSA's Con­fer­ence of Del­e­gates, which con­sists of rep­re­sen­ta­tives of sec­tions rep­re­sent­ed by 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 should be com­mis­sioned by Jan­u­ary 31 and be held with­in 30 days. 

Ram­per­sad al­so or­dered an au­dit in­to the PSA's fi­nances but is ex­pect­ed to clear­ly de­fine the ex­act terms of it, ear­ly this week. 

Af­ter the au­dit is com­plet­ed, a mem­ber­ship list will be com­piled which can then be used to pre­pare a new sani­tised vot­er's list for out­stand­ing ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions. 

In the group's state­ment of case, it not­ed that na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions were sched­uled to take place on No­vem­ber 27, 2017. 

The elec­tions were put on hold af­ter an­oth­er group of ac­tive mem­bers sought an in­junc­tion as they raised is­sues over the va­lid­i­ty of the then fi­nal vot­er's list.

In ear­ly 2018, High Court Judge Na­dia Kan­ga­loo or­dered that the list by san­i­tized, how­ev­er, the or­der was not com­plied with due to a num­ber of is­sues in­clud­ing the res­ig­na­tion of mem­bers of the elec­tion com­mit­tee. The com­mit­tee was even­tu­al­ly dis­band­ed by a spe­cial con­fer­ence. 

The ex­ec­u­tive elec­tion sit­u­a­tion has ef­fec­tive­ly al­lowed Duke to serve an­oth­er term at the helm of the or­gan­i­sa­tion un­til an­oth­er elec­tion is held. 

In the law­suit, the group claimed that with elec­tions still pend­ing, Duke uni­lat­er­al­ly ap­point­ed sev­er­al ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and re­moved sec­tions from the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, which has the pow­er to ap­point a new elec­tions com­mit­tee. 

The group al­so al­leged that there has been no bud­get for the union for the past eight years as it high­light­ed al­leged fi­nan­cial ir­reg­u­lar­i­ties in­clud­ing un­ap­proved over­seas trav­el for ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers and the plac­ing of a news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ments con­grat­u­lat­ing Duke af­ter he was elect­ed as Mi­nor­i­ty Leader of the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) in Feb­ru­ary 2017. 

The group is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Raisa Cae­sar and Man­isha Lutch­man, while John Heath and Li­onel Luck­hoo are rep­re­sent­ing the PSA, Duke and oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­bers.