By Emmanuel Joseph
The 12-year-old Employment Rights Tribunal (ERT) is to be overhauled and the government has put a hold on appointing a successor to the quasi-court’s chairman, retired High Court Justice Christopher Blackman,, the minister responsible for the ERT has revealed.
The tribunal has been without a chairman for nearly a year after Blackman stepped down on March 29 last year, citing his inability to dedicate enough time to both the ERT and the Constitution Review Commission which he also heads.
Minister of Labour Colin Jordan disclosed on Wednesday that the government is considering putting two permanent tribunal panels in place. Blackman had helmed the tribunal as a volunteer.
Jordan stressed that the tribunal, whose three panels are headed by a chair and two deputies, is still functioning, but with only the two part-time deputies, a situation that’s in the process of changing.
In an exclusive interview with Barbados TODAY, he said a final decision would be made before the end of the financial year on March 31.
Jordan said the tribunal’s restructuring will also involve the introduction of new rules and its hearing venue is to move from the Warrens Office Complex to a new and more spacious home in The City.
“What [we] have been talking…about is replacing Justice Blackman…getting back up to full speed,” said the minister. “We are holding on to that only because we believe we have to go to a partial full-time system. It came out of Justice Blackman’s concerns. A lot of what he said was true. It caused us to reflect…. They have three chairs, and right now there are still two that are functioning…. We believe that we will need two full-time tribunals – we are still in the discussion stage – to push off the work and then to stay up to date. You can say that [I am] actively considering moving to a full-time tribunal so that we can make sure that justice is not delayed.”
Jordan declared that while the tribunal has been successful in reducing the backlog of cases, it still has some way to go “and we believe that we need to have some full-time attention”.
The minister continued: “The two chairs are currently part-time and it’s not the intention of the government to get rid of them. We are actively looking at having two of the tribunals operate on a full-time basis. It is under active discussion, and we should be able to make a decision before the end of this financial year – before the end of March. I don’t have the number that I can share with you, but the concept of what we want to do is to make sure that the administration of labour justice is at its best.”
Jordan reported that his ministry’s work on the tribunal’s proposed restructuring has been assisted by the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
“We have had some interaction…engagement with the ILO and we believe that we have to have some of our tribunals working full-time and we are in the process of dealing with that,” he said.
Turning to the other pending change, Jordan revealed that the government has already started the legal process to institute the tribunal’s procedural rules: “Right now, the tribunal has no rules. Cabinet approved drafting instructions for rules, and those drafting instructions are right now with the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel. So, they are actually working on rules that would help to improve the work of the tribunal.
“The tribunal is working pretty well now in terms of how the chairs and how everybody works; but for certainty and so that people who appear [before the panel] [would] know what to expect, it is said that you should have rules, and those rules are now in the Office of the Chief Parliamentary Counsel being drafted.”
While he did not provide a date for relocation, Jordan disclosed that the new home for the tribunal will be in the Henry Forde and David Simmons Legal and Judicial Complex on Coleridge Street.
“You would recall that one of Justice Blackman’s issues was juggling places to have hearings because we are in a building with four other ministries and one large meeting space,” he said. “The Attorney General has been kind enough – because that place belongs to the judiciary, not to us, but the Attorney General has been kind enough to allocate some dedicated space for the tribunal to do its work. That will help tremendously in terms of someplace to hold the hearings. So, space, and then the full-time nature of the tribunal.”
According to the Ministry of Labour’s website, the ERT has delivered 44 unfair dismissal decisions between 2015 and last month.
In all four appeals of its rulings, the Court of Appeal and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) – this country’s final court of appeal –backed the tribunal. But in one case, the CCJ slashed the compensation awarded to ex-Chefette employee Orlando Harris by the appeal court.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
