• ‘No disrespect for Tribunal’
Gibraltar Government yesterday said it regrets what it called the "continued politicking" by the GSLP in relation to the Hernandez Industrial Tribunal case.
No 6 in its second statement on the affair this week accused Opposition Leader Joe Bossano of having conducted the case in a "highly political manner".
No6 says that the statement by the Opposition that the Government is the employer of persons employed directly by the Gibraltar Development Corporation, the Gibraltar Health Authority, the Elderly Care Agency and the Social Services Agency is "wholly untrue". It adds that "since the Opposition knows this, the Government concludes that their statement is a deliberate misrepresentation to further mislead public opinion for political gain. It is therefore the Opposition and not (as they allege) the Government that is being economical with the truth."
Government points out that there are hundreds of workers in Government funded and controlled statutory bodies, and indeed in Government owned companies who, like Ms Hernandez, are not Government employees for any purpose, including all purposes connected to the Employment Act.
They give as an example the fact that direct employees of such bodies cannot be transferred to Civil Service posts in the Government.
"All Government employees are civil servants (i.e. Crown officers). Employees of statutory bodies, such as the Social Services Agency are not," said No6.
The Government's says its decision not to accept the Tribunal's recommendation to employ Ms Hernandez in the Government in no way signals disrespect for the Tribunal.
"Because it is only a recommendation, the Government is specifically free not to accept it without it signalling any such disrespect. If the position were otherwise, the law would simply provide for the Tribunal to make a binding order to that effect, which the law specifically does not provide, saying that the Tribunal can only make a recommendation on the question of re-employment. It is in the very nature of a recommendation that it can properly be either accepted or not accepted. This is in contrast to the question of financial compensation where the law stipulates that the Tribunal makes binding orders," said a spokesman.
He added that it was "ridiculous political opportunism" to suggest that rejection of the Tribunal's recommendation is disrespect of the Tribunal.
"Indeed, it was because of institutional respect for the Tribunal that the Government thought it appropriate to make a public statement explaining why it felt it could not accept the Tribunal's non-binding recommendation."
"For the reasons stated in the Government's initial statement it is neither possible nor appropriate for the Government to accept the Tribunal's recommendation to directly allocate a job to Ms Hernandez in a Government Department. The fact that the government, as would be true of any other litigant or citizen, does not agree with a Tribunal's or Court's ruling or thinks it to be erroneous, does not indicate disrespect for that Tribunal or Court," he said.
http://www.chronicle.gi/readarticle.php?id=000013452&title=The Gibraltar Chronicle
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