In a significant judicial rebuke, the High Court has invalidated the controversial 2023 appointments of Deborah Charles as Clerk of the House of Assembly and Simone Williams-Huggins as Deputy Clerk. The ruling represents another legal setback for the recently ousted Unity Labour Party (ULP) administration.
Presiding Justice Cybelle Cenac-Dantes delivered the landmark judgment on Thursday, upholding Celena McDonald’s challenge against the Public Service Commission’s (PSC) appointment decisions. The court determined that the appointments were fundamentally unlawful, unreasonable, and procedurally flawed.
The judicial review revealed that the PSC acted unfairly and unlawfully by bypassing McDonald for the Clerk position while improperly selecting Williams-Huggins as Deputy Clerk instead of the qualified candidate. Crucially, the court found that the Commission violated established principles of selection and promotion, specifically Regulation 19 of the PSC Regulations.
Further compounding the procedural failures, the PSC neglected to advertise the vacant positions of Clerk and Deputy Clerk, thereby breaching Regulation 18 and undermining the fundamental principle of transparency in public service appointments.
The legal challenge, supported by the Public Service Union with representation from attorney Shirlan “Zita” Barnwell for McDonald, exposed the deeply politicized nature of the appointments. Charles, a former ULP senator and parliamentary secretary who had contested general elections in 2015 and 2020, assumed the Clerk role after Nicole Herbert’s retirement from public service.
The constitutional controversy emerged prominently during a July 13, 2023 parliamentary session when then-Opposition Leader Godwin Friday (now Prime Minister) raised substantive objections. Friday cited Constitutional Section 35, which explicitly designates the Clerk’s office as a non-partisan public service position, unlike the Speaker’s role which may accommodate partisan members.
Friday articulated profound concerns regarding Charles’ recent partisan history, noting that her transformation from active political combatant to impartial parliamentary official strained credibility. The opposition leader emphasized that the appointment would inevitably diminish trust in the Clerk’s office among opposition members and potentially compromise parliamentary functionality.
In response, then-Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves accused Friday of verbal abuse toward Charles and defended the appointments by citing historical precedents of politically active individuals assuming constitutional offices. This defense ultimately failed to persuade the judicial authorities.
The ruling continues a pattern of High Court decisions favoring the Public Service Union against the previous administration, highlighting systemic issues in governance during the ULP’s 25-year tenure.