Former AG says new pension bill is unconstitutional

ST GEORGE’S (CMC):

James Bristol, a former attorney general of Grenada during the Tillman Thomas administration, is of the view that the Public Sector Employees (Pension Fund) Bill 2024 which was approved in the Lower House of Parliament last week is unconstitutional because it is circumventing several sections of the constitution.

The bill, which is up for approval in the December 27 sitting of Upper House, seeks to establish a contributory pension scheme for public sector employees currently on contract and all who will be employed with government in the future.

The mandated payment to the plan which will be managed by a trust is three per cent of a public officer’s salary with a matching three per cent from the Government.

“You can have public officers, but you cannot circumvent the constitution by placing someone who is really holding a permanent post on a contract, a contract of an indefinite period. The constitution is being circumvented by utilising this process,” said Bristol who was the attorney who successfully argued before the High Court that the Pension Disqualification Act of 1983 was unconstitutional.

Bristol said if someone is entering the public service on a temporary basis to fill in while someone is off sick, or on maternity leave or there is a particular project to be carried out which 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 be regularise will be regularised,” he said in an interview.

“The government has to bite the financial bullet, put everybody in who is supposed to be in, you don’t need any of this verbiage here,” said Bristol.