KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent, CMC – The main opposition New Democratic Party (NDP) says it will discontinue any COVID-19 vaccine mandate lawsuit appeal if it is elected to office at the next general elections, constitutionally due in February 2026, but likely to be held by November 2025.
Opposition Leader Dr. Godwin Friday spoke soon after the High Court ruled against the government in a lawsuit that public sector unions brought challenging the mandate, which led to hundreds of public sector workers losing their jobs in December 2021.
High Court judge Esco Henry ruled that the special measures rules made under Statutory Rules and Orders 28 of 2021 — the vaccine mandate law — are unlawful, unconstitutional, and void.
She further held that none of the public sector workers who lost their jobs under the law ceased to be entitled to have their respective positions and are entitled to all benefits that were due and would become due to them.
Attorney Cerepha Harper-Joseph, who represented the government at the trial, has already indicated that an appeal will be filed and that she would apply for a stay of the execution of the judgment.
Justice Henry said this was expected, regardless of how her judgment had gone, adding, “it’s a critical decision impacting on very significant public interests matters.”
The judge said both sides “must pursue justice on behalf of the respective parties to the extent they consider necessary.”
Friday, speaking on his weekly radio program, noted that the government announced its decision to appeal even before seeing the written judgment.
“… well, I don’t see how they could talk about the appeal, and they haven’t even seen the entire judgment yet or consulting, I would suppose, with his lawyers,” said Friday, a lawyer.
“When you talk about appealing now, it’s just a reflexive spiteful reaction which will not go down well with the people of this country. It’s time to settle this matter. It’s time to let the people go back to their work. It’s time to give them back the benefits. It’s time to show them the respect they deserve,” he told radio listeners.
“In any event, any appeal that they do, an NDP government, we will discontinue that because it’s simply not the right thing to be doing this time to people who are struggling and suffering still from the government’s misguided, hard-headed, arrogant policy that they know everything right and not listening to everybody else,” said Friday, whose NDP lost the 2020 general election to the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP).
Friday welcomed the court ruling, noting that the NDP had always opposed the mandate.
The judgment “is a huge vindication of all the work, faith, and position adopted by the unions and their leadership.”
The Police Welfare Association, Teacher’s Union, and the Public Service Union brought challenges against the government on behalf of their members who were dismissed under the mandate.
The opposition leader said that the individuals in whose name the lawsuit was brought are “determined and brave members who stood up and said that they will challenge the matter in the court and wait for the court’s judgment which you felt would vindicate their position.”
He recalled that the opposition had left Parliament on August 5, 2021, when the mandate would be passed into law, to inform protesters outside about developments in the National Assembly.
The law was passed in the early hours of August 6, hours after Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves was injured when he was struck in the head as he walked among protesters on his way back to Parliament.