ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada, CMC—James Bristol, a former attorney general of Grenada during the Tillman Thomas administration, believes that the Public Sector Employees (Pension Fund) Bill 2024, which was approved in the Lower House of Parliament last week, is unconstitutional because it circumvents several sections of the constitution.
The Bill, which is up for approval in the December 27 sitting of the Upper House, seeks to establish a contributory pension scheme for public sector employees currently on contract and all who will be employed with the Government in the future.
The mandated payment to the plan that a trust will manage is three percent of a public officer’s salary with a matching three percent from the Government.
“You can have public officers, but you cannot circumvent the constitution by placing someone who holds a permanent post on a contract of an indefinite period. The constitution is being circumvented by utilizing this process,” said Bristol, who was the attorney who successfully argued before the High Court that the Pension Disqualification Act of 1983 was unconstitutional.
That legislation was a product of the People’s Revolutionary Government (PRG). During that period, Grenada’s constitution was suspended.
When constitutional democracy was returned after the collapse of the PRG, the Parliament approved a validation act for several pieces of legislation of the PRG Government to continue.
Despite being approved by the Herbert Blaize Government following the 1984 general election, the Pension Disqualification Act was declared unconstitutional in March 2022 by High Court Judge Raulston Glasgow after a long battle.
“The Pensions (Disqualification) Act Cap. 230A is unconstitutional, null and void,” said the Judgement.
Bristol said if someone is entering the public service on a temporary basis to fill in while someone is off sick, on maternity leave, or carrying out a particular project that will take a year or two, that’s fair enough.
“But where you have someone like nursing staff, which is a permanent job, and when you have someone on contract to fill that job, that’s unconstitutional; that is attempting to circumvent section 84 of the constitution,” said Bristol.
“So, the contract workers which the government made the song and dance about and that the previous administration tried to remove from the system are by this bill being removed from the existing pension rights guaranteed by section 92 of the constitution,” he added.
“This act is only going to result in more litigation, and we just finished a litigation, and the public officers were promised those who have to regularise will be regularised,” he said in an interview.
“The government has to bite the financial bullet, put everybody who is supposed to be in, and you don’t need any of this verbiage here,” said Bristol.
Once the Upper House approves it, the next step is approval from the Office of the Government and publication in the gazette.
The Government hopes that the Bill will become an Act of Parliament in January 2025 once it is approved.
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