Orville Taylor | Gauge the grey properly: Due process is inviolable

Ninety-three pages of detailed commentary from the investigation by the Office of the Children’s Advocate (OCA) and a page of recommendations after three pages of findings. My suggestion is that we all read the report put together by an excellent team, headed by Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon Harrison.

Scrupulously reading the narrative, it looks like a very difficult vice for chief executive officer (CEO) Rosalie Gage-Grey to extricate herself from. Honestly, the report is disturbing and stomach-curdling in some instances. In a nutshell, an American paedophile was allowed to have access to minors in state care, and the CEO failed to protect the children and gave untrue information to the political heads. On the surface of it, her conduct warrants summary dismissal.

Never mind how it might appear, with the minister of education being very strident in asking Gage-Grey to ‘step aside’. There is no reason to think there is a witch hunt, because statute requires that the matters which precipitated the investigation be not only reported to the relevant minister, but most importantly, to Parliament.

The entire schema of the Child Care and Protection Act (CCPA) makes it clear that no one – including attorneys, has the right or privilege to conceal any action which puts a child at risk. Indeed, Section 6 (9) of the act explicitly requires squealing “even if the information … (a) is privileged as a result of a relationship of attorney-at-law and client; or (b) is confidential”.

REPORT IT

It is like dirty money; if it brushes your business; then you must report it.

Paragraph 16 (12) of the Schedule to the CCPA reads – “If the Children’s Advocate finds during the conduct of his investigation or on the conclusion thereof, that there is evidence of a breach of duty, or misconduct, or criminal offence on the part of an officer or member of any relevant authority, the Children’s Advocate SHALL refer the matter to the person or body of persons competent to take such disciplinary or other proceedings as may be appropriate against that officer or member and in ALL cases SHALL lay a special report before Parliament.”

However ‘enraged’ the minister and public may be, Gage-Grey being asked to remove herself from office, to facilitate investigations by the Public Services Commission (PSC), subverts the authority of this entity that has the remit to discipline her. Let the OSC do its job.

Just in case any green or otherwise-tinted sycophant is ready to pounce on my black side; this has been my consistent position regarding anyone, who has been believed to have committed any offence. In my column of March 24, 2019, the first of at least four on the subject, I explicitly asserted regarding former Minister of Education Ruel Reid and Fritz Pinnock, former head of the Caribbean Maritime University “...inasmuch as this is potentially as juicy a saga as Petrojelly, we must not jump to judgment because due process and following rules and procedures are the mainstays of our democracy and cannot be discarded due to the expedience of the powerful.”

Whatever the swan dance or fowl-skanking we might be carrying on with, it must be sauce for the gander and goose.

HAS A CASE

There is no doubt in my mind that Gage-Grey has a case or crate to answer – and she must. However, somewhere in all of this drama, we and apparently the government’s spokespersons lost sight of the fact that in several other matters in the very ministry and in other scandals, the delay in taking decisive action has been embarrassing. Moreover, there are detailed guidelines, which must be followed in taking any disciplinary action against any worker and especially a public servant.

Part V of our Public Service Regulations outlines the steps which shall be taken regarding any allegation of misconduct against any public officer. As with any individual accused of any wrongful act, the ‘principles of natural justice’ are sacrosanct. Not limited to the following, the essential elements include; i) the individual being made aware of all the charges and allegations against her, ii) her being given an opportunity to respond, iii) her having right to representation and iv) her having the right to appeal to a level higher than that which has not being previously involved in taking action against her.

As it stands, the damning OCA report is simply that. Of course, recommendations suggest initiating disciplinary proceedings. Thus, because of “…the CEO’s gross breach of the duty of care owed to wards of the state and former wards who are housed in facilities run by the CPFSA,” the OCA referred the matter “… to the Honourable Fayval Williams, minister of education & youth, as the person competent to take such disciplinary or other proceedings as may be appropriate against the CEO of the CPFSA.” She perhaps can ask the permanent secretary to send her on leave, but the OSC has full competence to act.

Interestingly, the OCA, headed by a senior attorney, never recommended a police investigation.

Yet, we must be fully conscious that however serious the findings are, they merely constitute ‘allegations’ and at this stage, are only bases for disciplinary procedures. We have to wait until she has been tried and found guilty before we recommend punishment.

Anything else is simply a lynching and extrajudicial.

- Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.