Teacher cleared of disciplinary charges stemming from 2022 general election candidacy

By Emmanuel Joseph

Pedro Shepherd is now free to resume duties as a Government-paid teacher. Fellow teacher Alwyn Babb wants Government to clear his name and compensate him for the “conviction”.

They were both charged last year by the Ministry of the Public Service under General Order 3.18:1 for contesting the January 2022 general election and were suspended with half pay.

Shepherd, the former president of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT),has now had his charges dropped. He disclosed on Tuesday that on March 21, he was informed of the decision to scrap the charges during a disciplinary hearing chaired by the Director General for Human Resources in the Ministry Penelope Linton. The confirmation to Shepherd by Linton came exactly three weeks after a local High Court Judge ruled that the General Order 3.18:1 banning all public officers from actively participating in politics, was unconstitutional.

Shepherd said he now awaits the written decision of the ministry, which he expects once school resumes after the Easter vacation.

“They were supposed to write the President [Dame Sandra Mason], and send off a report so that whatever is to be done would be done so I can get reinstated [and] what money is due to me I would get. I haven’t heard anything,” he told Barbados TODAY. “The lawyer had written on behalf of us, but that was prior. That letter was March 8 and I was able to give the Director General a copy of the letter on March 21, the same day that we had the hearing. She had responded to that letter to state that the two of us would be hearing from them as soon as is practicable,” Shepherd said.

Meanwhile, Alwyn Babb, a second teacher who was actually found guilty and penalised by the ministry, also for running as a candidate in the same general election, said on Tuesday he is awaiting a written decision on reinstatement, compensation and the clearing of his name.

Last April, both teachers were sent on half-pay leave for six months for allegedly breaching General Orders 3.18.1 and Paragraph 2 (h) of the Code of Discipline when they ran in the elections on behalf of the Democratic Labour Party (DLP). Babb contested the St Peter seat and Shepherd the St Michael South East constituency, both unsuccessfully.Shepherd, a Wilkie Cumberbatch Primary School teacher said the charges against him were for speaking at a political meeting at Haggatt Hall, being absent from school on the January 12 and 13 without excuse and another for insubordination – not attending a meeting to which he was invited by th