Teachers in Barbados want compensation following suspension for contesting general election

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Two teachers who were suspended after contesting the general election last year are now free to resume their duties, three weeks after a High Court judge ruled that the General Order banning all public officers from actively participating in politics was unconstitutional.

Pedro Shepherd and Alwyn Babb had contested the January 2022 general election that Prime Minister Mia Mottley had called 18 months ahead of the constitutional deadline.

Mottley led her Barbados Labour Party (BLP) to a second consecutive sweep of all 30 seats in the Parliament against the main opposition Democratic Labour Party (DLP).

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 DLP.

The two teachers were both charged last year by the Ministry of the Public Service under General Order 3.18:1 for contesting the election and suspended with half pay.

Shepherd, the former president of the Barbados Union of Teachers (BUT), said he had received correspondence informing him of the decision to scrap the charges during a disciplinary hearing chaired by the Director General for Human Resources in the Ministry Penelope Linton.

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

“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 the online publication 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.

Babb, who had initially been found guilty and penalised by the ministry for contesting the election, said he is also awaiting a written decision on reinstatement, compensation and for his name to be cleared.

“There is no official word from the Ministry or the Public Service Commission. My lawyer wrote a letter and they said that they are going to get back to us when it is practicable. I don't know what that means. That is all that they said.

“In my case, I was convicted and given a sentence. I actually suffered. I am actually waiting on them to say to me that I am reinstated. I am asking them for a return of salary.

“The sentence that was given, the suspension and being found guilty reached colleges in the United States of America where I liaise on behalf of athletes…I need that cleared up as well,” he said, adding “I am seeking compensation as well because I suffered financially.”

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