A pub­lic ser­vant has been award­ed over $790,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for be­ing by­passed for pro­mo­tion in favour of a col­league, who won a na­tion­al schol­ar­ship.

High Court Judge Joan Charles or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion for Wendy Ann Lewis as she up­held her con­sti­tu­tion­al law­suit against the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al on Thurs­day.

In rul­ing that Lewis’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to equal­i­ty of treat­ment from a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty was breached, Jus­tice Charles ruled that there was no jus­ti­fi­able aim in pro­mot­ing a re­turn­ing na­tion­al schol­ar ahead of sim­i­lar­ly qual­i­fied but less ex­pe­ri­enced pub­lic ser­vants such as Lewis.

“The Hand­book of Rules for Train­ing Awards do not pre­scribe a sys­tem of speedy ap­point­ment of Na­tion­al Schol­ars to the dis­ad­van­tage of oth­er Pub­lic Ser­vants who are qual­i­fied to fill cer­tain po­si­tions,” Jus­tice Charles said.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence, Lewis en­tered the pub­lic ser­vice as a clerk on a tem­po­rary ba­sis.

In 2000, she sub­mit­ted an un­so­licit­ed ap­pli­ca­tion for the of­fice of Re­search Of­fi­cer I.

Three years lat­er, she was in­formed that she did not sat­is­fy the re­quire­ments for the gener­ic of­fice in the pub­lic ser­vice and there was no job spec­i­fi­ca­tion cre­at­ed for the role in the Min­istry of Tourism.

How­ev­er, be­tween 2004 and 2010, the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) ap­point­ed Lewis to act in the role at the Tourism Min­istry.

Af­ter she re­turned from a year of no-pay study leave, she re­sumed du­ty as Clerk I in the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment.

Lewis was even­tu­al­ly ap­point­ed to act as a Re­search Of­fi­cer I again at the Tourism Min­istry in 2011 and was sub­se­quent­ly pro­mot­ed to the post of Re­search Of­fi­cer II in March 2018.

Lewis, through her lawyer Leon Kalicha­ran, filed the law­suit af­ter she learned that a col­league with sim­i­lar qual­i­fi­ca­tions but less ex­pe­ri­ence was ap­point­ed to serve as a Re­search Of­fi­cer I in the min­istry in 2005 while she (Lewis) was hold­ing an act­ing ap­point­ment based on there pur­port­ed­ly be­ing no job spec­i­fi­ca­tion for the role.

She al­so re­ferred to an­oth­er col­league be­ing pro­mot­ed ahead of her in 2010.

In de­ter­min­ing the law­suit, Jus­tice Charles re­ject­ed an ap­pli­ca­tion from the AG’s Of­fice for the case to be struck out for be­ing an abuse of process.

The AG’s Of­fice con­tend­ed that Lewis wrong­ly sought to bring a con­sti­tu­tion­al claim af­ter she failed to file a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit over the is­sue with­in the pre­scribed pe­ri­od for do­ing so.

Jus­tice Charles dis­agreed with the State’s po­si­tion as she not­ed that Lewis’ de­lay was pri­mar­i­ly due to the PSC de­lib­er­ate­ly with­hold­ing im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing her col­league’s pro­mo­tion.

“It seems to me that this is in­deed the kind of case for which Con­sti­tu­tion­al re­dress ought to be sought since it deals with the wrong­ful use of pow­er by a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty against an in­di­vid­ual,” she said.

“I am of the view that much of the de­lay was caused by the Com­mis­sion which failed to ad­dress the Claimant’s mul­ti­ple re­quests for a re­view of her ap­point­ment date when the facts, as they knew, war­rant­ed such a re­view,” she added.

Jus­tice Charles al­so ruled that Lewis’ con­sti­tu­tion­al right to en­joy­ment of prop­er­ty was in­fringed as she lost out on re­ceiv­ing a high salary and pen­sion be­cause of the de­lay in pro­mot­ing her. She al­so found that the de­lay af­fect­ed Lewis’ abil­i­ty to be pro­mot­ed to high­er ranks.

“This im­pact was mul­ti­plied by sub­se­quent pro­mo­tions of these Of­fi­cers to se­nior po­si­tions while the Claimant’s progress was slowed due to the wrong date of ap­point­ment be­ing ap­plied to her,” she said.

Jus­tice Charles is­sued a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over how the pro­mo­tions were han­dled. She al­so or­dered $340,000 in com­pen­sato­ry dam­ages, $250,000 in ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages, and $200,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages.

She al­so or­dered the State to pay Lewis’ le­gal fees for the case, which will be as­sessed by her if the par­ties fail to agree on a fig­ure.

The AG’s Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Coreen Find­ley, Aryan­ta Williams, and Vin­cent Jar­dine.