Dixon defence

Trade unionist Lambert Brown, an industrial relations adviser to the Jamaica Medical Doctors Association (JMDA), is claiming that the Orders used for the interdiction of Dr Aujae Dixon are not applicable, amid discussions about the September 17 disciplinary notice served on the medical doctor following his participation as a candidate in the September 3 general election.

Dixon is the losing People’s National Party (PNP) candidate in Clarendon North Central. He was served notice, by letter, of his interdiction which began on September 17.

Brown, a PNP senator who has been a trade unionist for more than 50 years, told The Sunday Gleaner that, while Dixon works in the public service, he was not covered under the Public Sector Staff Orders used in the matter.

In describing the Staff Orders, Brown said, “It’s a policy. It is neither a contract nor a law. The Constitution is a supreme law. Since the Staff Orders came out in the 1960s, it hasn’t been changed much since, except for a 2004 amendment. But I believe that there are rules from what existed originally. And in fact, that clause needs to go, because that clause has not met the Charter of Rights provisions.

According to Brown, who claimed he was not giving his opinion as an adviser to the JMDA or as a representative of the PNP, where the Order applies, the ultimate arbiter of disciplinary action would be the Services Commission.

“So, for the civil servant at the Ministry of Health, their matters go to the Services Commission for discipline. In the case of Dr Dixon, it doesn’t go to the Services Commission. It goes to the regional board. And that makes it fundamentally different. Because, in the case of a civil servant, their case, for example, cannot go to the Industrial Disputes Tribunal,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.

The veteran trade unionist went further.

He suggested that the Ministry of Health and Wellness was meddling where it shouldn’t.

Citing the September 17, 2024 memo to staff from Permanent Secretary Errol Greene, to regional directions of the four health regions, captioned ‘Engagement in political activities’ and copied to the principal director for corporate services, and senior director for human resources management and development, it cited Staff Order 4.2.6 (1) which is used as the basis for Dixon’s interdiction.

Partisan political activity

The section of the Staff Orders for the Public Service states that “Officers are expressly forbidden to engage in any type of partisan political activity in any elections at any level”.

Greene’s letter urged the bodies to “take the required steps to ensure that any staff member who intends to actively participate in the political process, disengages themselves from employment within the (health) authority”.

That letter from the permanent secretary and not the regional health authority is, for Brown, a clear indication that any disciplinary action being contemplated was by the government through the ministry. He also pointed to the interdiction notice written on the Ministry of Health letterhead, in arguing that the action was one taken by the government.

“Dr Dixon is not employed to the Ministry of Health and Wellness. Like most doctors in the country, he is employed to a statutory body. In this case, the Southern Regional Health Authority, which was established in 1997 by an act of Parliament called the National Health Services Act. That set up several regional authorities. Each of them has a board, but the board is answerable to the Ministry of Health. Each regional authority has its own authority in law, since then, and are separate from the civil service. And they are not public officers in the way that a public officer is used in the Staff Orders.”

“If they (Ministry of Health) gets involved in this, and they have, because of Errol Greene’s letter, he’s imposing a civil service standard, which is not correct because the civil service and a statutory body operate with different rules,” he insisted.

He believes the Supreme Court judgment handed down by Chief Justice Bryan Sykes of May 26, 2025, addresses the issue. It involved the termination of a former centre manager for the Jamaica 4-H Clubs who took the entity to court for terminating his employment. He was seeking reinstatement and damages, but the chief justice ruled that he was not a public servant.

The man, who was first temporarily employed as centre manager at the Denbigh 4-H Centre, Clarendon, in August 2008, was in 2009 assigned additional duties, by the board, as centre manager at Vernamfield 4-H Centre, also in Clarendon.

As outlined to the court, the board in another letter dated February 18, 2011, indicated that the period of temporary employment was extended to August 3 of that year. He was also reminded that the temporary employment related to a position which was not vacant but hinged on the expiration of a school project in August that year.

By writs of certiorari, he sought to have the court quash the decision to end his employment, and, by mandamus, sought to compel the board to re-employ him in the position he was in at the time of the termination.

The chief justice, in handing down judgment, said the judicial traffic in these circumstances was one way. Employment by a statutory body, without more, he said, does not transform the employee into a public servant within the meaning of the Constitution of Jamaica.

Brown said that, while case law exists in two Caribbean jurisdictions, he believes the precedent for Dixon’s case is in this judgment.

Meanwhile, the JMDA said it is in talks with the regional body.

“The JMDA is currently engaged in discussions with the Southern Regional Health Authority regarding the interdiction of Dr Dixon. The matter is ongoing and sensitive and we are unable to provide details at this time,” said JMDA President Dr Renee Badroe in response to The Sunday Gleaner.

She said a planned September 29 meeting was “cancelled due to the unavailability of key members of the industrial relations teams of the JMDA [and that] the date [for hearing] is to be confirmed”.

Dr Dixon’s personal finances

Asked whether Dixon received a salary for September, she said, “We will not comment on Dr Dixon’s personal finances.”

Asked also if the JMDA would seek a definitive ruling from the courts or IDT, she said, “The union will rely on the relevant professionals regarding the legal concerns of the case.”

At the same time, Zuleika Jess, the PNP’s spokesperson on justice, said nothing is off the table.

“The party is considering all available options,” she told The Sunday Gleaner.

Previously, Jess had stated in a release from the PNP that: “This action undermines civic participation and threatens the very freedoms our democracy is meant to protect. Such a move, whether the result of an overly zealous application of policy or misinterpretation of staff orders, has the effect of silencing those who seek to exercise their constitutional rights.”

In seeking to counter the PNP’s position on the matter, JLP operatives have sought to paint the Opposition as hypocritical.

They pointed out that, in March 2020, months before that year’s general election was called, the PNP complained to Donna Parchment Brown, the political ombudsman at the time, about Tova Hamilton, who was serving as deputy executive director of the Tourism Product Development Company and JLP caretaker for Trelawny Northern, and Rhoda Crawford, who had recently been announced as the likely challenger to Peter Bunting’s reign in Manchester Central.

With the election due that year, the PNP had said Hamilton’s case was the most serious because “of the large resources under the disposal of the TPDCo”.

The PNP argued then that it was a breach of civil-service rules for persons employed by the State to openly engage in political activities.

Speaking with The Gleaner on the matter at the time, JLP General Secretary Dr Horace Chang said he disagreed that any ­civil-service rules were being broken.

“They are required to resign when an election is called in terms of where they are [employed to the State]. Government is by far the largest employer of professionals in our country. You cannot alienate those people from participating,” Chang had said.

“When you are part of the civil service, you are to get the permission of your permanent secretary, and you resign during the election period,” Chang said, adding that he was a medical officer in Hanover before resigning the year of the 1980 election to contest a seat there.

That resignation from Chang would have taken place more than two decades before the 2004 amendment to the Staff Orders.

erica.virtue@gleanerjm.com