Former principal fails to get dismissal order quashed

Dismissed principal of the Free Hill Primary and Infant School in St Mary, Martin Murphy, has failed in his bid to get the Judicial Review Court to quash the decision of the school board to fire him.

The court ruled that an alternative remedy was available to Murphy, which was the Teachers' Appeals Tribunal, instead of judicial review proceedings.

Murphy was dismissed in December 2019 due to alleged financial irregularities at the school following an audit by the Ministry of Education. Murphy has denied the accusations made in relation to the irregularities.

Justice Tania Mott Tulloch Reid in making her ruling last month, recommended that if Murphy “is so minded, he may seek an extension of time to apply to the Appeals Tribunal for  his case to be considered by it.”

Attorney-at-law Hugh Wildman, who is representing Murphy, said on Friday that an appeal has been filed in the Court of Appeal against the judge's ruling.

Wildman submitted that because leave was granted for the claim for judicial review to be filed then an alternative remedy should not be considered at the substantive hearing. Wildman argued that the defendants had offered no objection to leave being granted for judicial review.

Leave was granted by the Supreme Court in December 2020 for Murphy to go to the Judicial Review Court to quash the dismissal order by the school board.

When the matter came up for hearing in May, attorneys-at-law Stuart Stimpson and Steven McCreath who represented the defendants argued that an alternative remedy was available to Murphy. They were instructed by the Director of State Proceedings.

The defendants were the school's board of management and Paulette Nelson, chairman of the school board.

Last month the judge upheld submissions from the attorneys-at-law representing the defendants that an alternative remedy was available to Murphy in the form of the Appeals Tribunal. The judge refused the declarations and orders that were being sought.

Murphy was ordered to pay the defendants' legal costs.

“It is not usually the case that costs are allowed in judicial review matters. However, in this case, when the claimant in his own evidence, failed to even wait for the decision as to whether his lawyer would be able to participate but went away and applied for judicial review in circumstances where there was clearly on the statute a process to appeal the decision of the Board which was not favourable to him, I am of the view that this is a case in which the costs incurred by the defendants in defending the case should be the claimant's,” the judge ruled.

Attorney-at-law Duke Foote also represented Murphy.

-Barbara Gayle

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