INTERDICTED

A junior resident at May Pen Hospital who contested the September 3 general election as a People’s National Party (PNP) candidate is scheduled to face disciplinary proceedings on Monday. The Southern Regional Health Authority (SRHA), his employer, alleges that he breached Public Service Staff Order 4.2.6(1), which prohibits public officers from engaging in partisan political activity.

That Staff Order bars officers from engaging in party platforms or any partisan political role in elections at any level. The SRHA cites this clause in moving to interdict the doctor.

A letter dated September 16 and obtained by The Sunday Gleaner bears the signature of Nicolette Thomas Edwards, director of human resource management and development. It informs Dr Aujae Dixon – the defeated PNP candidate who challenged the Jamaica Labour Party’s Robert Nesta Morgan in Clarendon North Central – that as of September 17, he has been interdicted in accordance with the Staff Orders for the Public Service 10.7 in order to carry out further investigations. The letter also stipulates he may not leave Jamaica without permission from the regional director.

“Additionally, you and a representative are invited to a meeting at the Regional Office on Monday, 2025 September 29 starting at 10:00 a.m. to give you an opportunity to be heard in determining your salary whilst you are on interdiction,” the letter added.

Serious breach

Staff Order 10.7 governs the process of placing an officer on interdiction when a serious breach of conduct is alleged. Under it, a public officer may be suspended – or “interdicted” – pending investigations, and while interdicted may face salary reductions. The salary may be reduced to zero, 25 per cent, or 50 per cent.

Contacted on Friday by The Sunday Gleaner, Dixon said he was surprised the matter had become public and initially declined to comment. He later added: “I will comply with the letter and attend the meeting, and my union, the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA), is aware of the matter.”

Public servants under these Orders include employees of ministries, departments, statutory bodies, government-controlled companies, and others performing public functions. The prohibition in question thus applies broadly across government service.

Former acting public defender, barrister Matondo Mukulu, criticised the Staff Orders as being “ ultra vires” (beyond legal authority) in light of the Constitution.

“The Staff Orders ... will not and cannot pass the constitutional test set by the court in Julian Robinson v Attorney General because, for example, as it relates to the use of interdiction – with its adverse impact on a person’s salary before culpability is established – it cannot be shown that interdiction is a proportionate tool,” he told The Sunday Gleaner. “Why would it be necessary to suspend a doctor/surgeon to investigate whether he or she has breached regulation 4.2.6?”

Mukulu further argued that while the intention behind Regulation 4.2.6 may be understandable, “the legal learning on provisions of this kind throughout the Commonwealth informs us that a blanket restriction, irrespective of the rank of the public servant, will fail the proportionality test”.

Attorney John Clarke was even more blunt: “The rule is unconstitutional.” Though he is not representing Dixon, Clarke drew on case law from Barbados to support his view as he spoke to The Sunday Gleaner.

In Barbados, a High Court judge in 2023 struck down a regulation nearly identical to Jamaica’s, which barred all public servants from political activity. The judge ruled it unconstitutional, finding it inconsistent with the rights to freedom of expression and association. He deemed the regulation “overly broad, disproportionate and cannot be reasonably justified in a free and democratic society”.

In that Nicolette Murray case, disciplinary proceedings were permanently stayed. The rule – General Order 3.18.1 in Barbados – had forbidden public officers from being adopted as parliamentary candidates, canvassing, holding party offices, speaking at political meetings, or acting as agents or sub agents.

Clarke emphasised that no policy may override constitutional rights.

Dixon, 31, earned his medical degree from The University of the West Indies (UWI). He has worked at the Clarendon-based May Pen Hospital for eight years, with a special interest in paediatrics. He was previously a youth aide to former Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller. His foray into politics began while at The UWI; he was active in the PNP’s 2020 campaign for Dr Desmond Brennan.

The targeting of doctors

The targeting of doctors under the political activity rule is not without precedent. In 2020, Brennan, the prior PNP candidate in that area, was interdicted by SRHA when he sought election. No action was taken against him in 2016 when he ran, but his post was shortly after moved from Chapelton Hospital to Lionel Town Hospital. In an interview prior to the 2020 polls, Brennan told The Sunday Gleaner that he was frustrated by government action against him. He ultimately left the service, taking a reduced pension.

Former Jamaica Civil Service Association (JCSA) President O’Neil Grant recalled that in his tenure, letters of caution were sent to the membership.

“During my tenure, there were no reports of persons taking the political platform but what we did have was political actors being given roles in the public sector,” he said, naming four such individuals.

“But of significance is that once they became public officers, we did not see them appearing on any political platform. When Robert Nesta Morgan was a political adviser on communications at the OPM (Office of the Prime Minister), he was given a title of director of communications and appeared on political platforms. We queried this and we were advised that he was not a public officer. We encouraged OPM to desist from calling him a director, which they did. We have not had any difficulties outside of that,” Grant told The Sunday Gleaner.

Interestingly, the prohibition does not extend uniformly. The president of the Jamaica Teachers’ Association, Mark Malabver, noted there is no similar regulation in the Education Regulations that bars teachers from running in elections, and indeed several have done so. Teachers fall under the broader public service umbrella.

A regional precedent from St Kitts and Nevis also supports Dixon’s case. In 2019, accountant Leon Natta Nelson successfully challenged public service rules that barred him from political involvement unless he resigned. The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court held those rules unconstitutional, affirming the right of public officers to run for elected office while safeguarding their position in government, as long as constitutional protections are respected.

Against that backdrop, the case against Dixon presents a potential flashpoint over the balance between public service neutrality and individual rights. Mukulu has called for prompt reform of these “antiquated, non-Charter of Rights-compliant Staff Orders”.

“The longer we wait to take the blade of reform to these rules from a bygone era, the more lives and careers we would have ruined,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com