Resources needed to enforce whistleblower legislation

Even as the Upper House passed the Whistleblower Protection Bill 2021 in its last sitting for 2021 on Monday, two independent Senators expressed concern about various aspects of the legislation and called for further public education as well as more resources to enforce the law.

While lauding the legislation, Senator Kevin Boyce said financial and intellectual resources are needed to support it.

“And it must be implemented properly so that Barbadians know for sure their confidentiality is protected and they themselves are safe going forward,” he said in his contribution to debate in the Senate.

Senator Boyce added that Barbadians need to find out more about the concept of restorative justice.

“Our prevailing culture is punitive justice or, as we say, ensuring people get ‘lost way in jail’ but in some cultures, 90 per cent of all criminal cases are settled via pleas rather than by jury,” he noted. “In this scenario, when someone is charged with an offence, they can say they are not contesting the charges but the charges will be reduced and they can offer the offended party financial or other recompense to settle the matter.

However, it will call for some public education because some people might think they are getting tricked if they don’t fully understand how it works.”

Meanwhile, Senator Julian Hunte expressed concern about elements of the legislation that might clash with some of the provisions of the Employment Rights Act.

“When we speak of employment rights, we normally only look at it from the worker’s perspective, but management has rights too.

For example, this Bill speaks to ‘detrimental action’ taken by an employer in terms of dismissal, demotion or transferring an employee to another department [for disclosure of improper conduct in the workplace], but employers are well within their right to do so and it does not necessarily speak to wrongdoing on anyone’s part.

“The action becomes detrimental if such a move is considered unfair by the employee,” he said.

Senator Hunte suggested that the Employment Rights Tribunal may have even more work coming its way once the legislation takes effect.

“Which means it will need more staff, a secretariat and a place to meet because we have a situation now where some cases are taking as long as six years before they come up,” he pointed out.

The independent Senator added that while the original Employment Rights Act did make provision for people to report questionable activities within their workplaces, the new law offers a level of protection the previous one did not. (DH)