Today, the Government of Belize had to appear in court to defend against a lawsuit brought against them by the one of their former employees.
Melissa Tucker, worked for the Ministry of Education for 17 years from 1995 to 2013. That's when her supervisors at the Ministry sent her home for what she claims was a frivolous complaint. She gave much of her adult life to the service of the Government, but with the stroke of the pen, she was sent home with a letter of termination and without any opportunity to offer a defense of her actions while on duty.
The problem is that she didn't have security of tenure because she was an open vote worker, so she wasn't appointed to her post by the Public Services Commission. That's the body which hears all complaints against appointed Government employees, and has to give all of them due process. Bottom line? It's very, very hard to get an established public officer fired.
But, Tucker was not established, so she had no tribunal; she was terminated forthwith because she was hired under the Open Vote Workers Regulations.
Well, Melissa Tucker says that it's unconstitutional, and she decided to fight the Government's Open Vote Worker laws. Today, after 2 and a half years of trying, she got her first day in court, and at the end of the hearing, she discussed it with us:
Melissa Tucker, Suing the Government of Belize
"I worked for the Ministry of Education for 17 years. The initial first 3 years as a teacher and the last 14 years as their school feeding coordinator and then eventually their school health coordinator. The termination happened in 2013 and I was handed a letter one day termination effective immediately. They had disagreed with an action that I took. Even though I had commence dialogue with my supervisors, written reports, they went ahead and proceeded with termination. They claimed that they could terminate me because my status was class as an open vote public officer, for under the government workers regulations and so they believe they did not have to follow the protocol that is set forth to terminate or to discipline employees who fall under the public service regulations."
Daniel Ortiz
"The court will handle that aspect. Let's leave that alone for the time being. I am sure you feel offended, you feel upset. It would be distressing to anyone that one day you have a job and next day its gone."
Melissa Tucker, Suing the Government of Belize
"Yes. Initially when it occurred I said to my supervisor I am going to pursue this matter, whatever means I need to take on. However, I did not know that it would take two and a half years initially just to get into the court today for the first session of trial. The important thing for me was that there were so many other officers who were in a similar situation - who were open vote and at the whim of executive. So if one day, they came in and said well look I don't like how you did X,Y and Z or you didn't go out and vote or you're doing something that we don't like - I can send you home even if you dedicated 17 years, at least in my case. And so I felt that it would have been imperative that I pursue the matter. Yes it was distressing initially. I am a single parent, I have a 7 year old and I was left without a job wondering how I would feed my child and take care of myself. Well fortunately I had a wonderful set of parents and I had family that stood by me, that kept me going and I got that my stand was for justice."
The case is expected to continue for the next few days, and we'll keep following the story. An official from the Public Service Ministry testified in the case that there are currently just over 2 thousand employees of the Government who were hired through the Open Vote regulations.
Email
Print