Dismissal with cause

May 28, 2017 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

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This past week, the government decided to terminate the contract of a Deputy Permanent Secretary. The said person had been charged the same week with some incomprehensible offence which is still to be determined by the court.
Now when a public servant is charged with a criminal offence, it is usual for that person to be interdicted pending the outcome of the charges. The presumption of innocence usually prevents that person from being dismissed.
Not all offences result in interdiction, because someone could well be charged privately, such as for a traffic offence, but is not interdicted for this offence.
The government terminated the services of the Deputy Permanent Secretary and its explanation was most disconcerting. It simply said that the person’s contract provided for such a move. Should the services of someone, particularly a public officer serving in a senior position, be ended without cause being given?
If the government is serious about attracting skills to the public service, it has to ensure some security of tenure for workers, including those employed on contracts. You cannot ask people to work without the assurance that they would not be victims of some indiscriminate dismissal.
Some people take jobs in the hope of pursuing a career. They have responsibilities, and they assume financial commitments on the basis that they have an expectation to remain on the job, providing they do nothing wrong.  Some people have loans and mortgages based on the expectation that they will not be put on the breadline without any just reason.
So, while on the one hand the right exists to terminate a person’s contract in accordance with clauses within the contract, it would be unfair to simply subject someone to termination without any cause.
Think about someone who is working for years in a job and has children in school and they have to provide for those children. Then one day, they go to work and receive a letter saying that their services are no longer needed, but no reasons are given for the termination. That person’s whole life is disrupted because of an unexplained decision. The least that person is entitled to is a reason for their dismissal.
The services of a contract employee should not be terminated without a reason. Suppose someone is performing excellently and his or her work is of the highest standard, should that person’s services be terminated simply because there is provision within the contract of employment for it to be terminated?
Why would a professional person want to work with the government, if arbitrarily that person’s contract can be terminated even if that person was performing excellently?
Problems can arise because of this happening.  Someone does not like you in the office and then makes representation that your contract should be terminated. Someone feels that you were employed by the previous administration and without reference to your performance or any objective measure, decides that you should have no place in the government system.
Someone wants your job and has friends in high places and uses those connections to have your fired. Or you are entitled to promotion, but there is a favoured candidate and in order to facilitate the promotion of the favoured one, you have to lose your job. How can this be fair?
Or you belong to the opposition political party and therefore someone decides that opposition supporters are not allowed to work with the government. The first chance they get they decide to dismiss you. Or even worse, concoct some charge so as to lay the basis for dismissal.
It is not being implied that this is what has happened in terms of the dismissal of the Deputy Permanent Secretary, but in the absence of justifiable reasons, all manner of speculation will run wild.
The services of persons should only be terminated for just cause. Most professionals enter into contracts of employment with legitimate expectations that they would not be dismissed unless they underperform or misbehave, and that their employment would be maintained.
This is why it is important that persons be given reasons why their contracts are being terminated. If it is because they have not performed on the job, then that is understandable…all well and good. But just to send someone off without giving a reason is patently unfair.
Persons can be politically victimized and the public would not be any wiser because no reasons were given. There must be some basis for deciding to terminate the contract of someone. Otherwise, every contract employee will be working with a cloud of uncertainty hanging over their head, including the possibility of them being the victims of political witch-hunting.

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