Seventeen-year salary ordeal restores a constitutional property declaration

A prison officer’s long-running salary dispute returned to the constitutional starting line on 29 October. The Privy Council allowed Favianna Gajadhar’s appeal and restored a declaration that her property rights under Trinidad and Tobago’s Constitution had been breached.

The Public Service Commission had repeatedly treated her as having resigned, despite successful challenges to that decision. The Board rejected an attempt to measure the relevant delay only from a 2021 appellate ruling: on the accepted facts, her entitlement to office and salary ran back to June 2007.

The Board did not hold that every unlawful public-service decision is automatically a constitutional violation. It examined the persistent unfairness and arbitrary exercise of power in this case. The damages awards had survived the earlier appeal; this appeal concerned restoration of the property-right declaration.

Complete official judgment reviewed, paragraphs 1–26. Trinidad and Tobago appeal, not Jamaican employment law. Declaration restored and appeal allowed; no new damages figure was awarded by the Board in this judgment. Later treatment not checked.