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The Ombudsman found that I was illegally dismissed from UG

Jul 01, 2021 Letters

Dear Editor,

I refer to Mr. Vincent Alexander’s letter on my contract termination in December 2011 in your June 30 edition. With due respect to the education of Mr. Alexander, I am not aware that he was ever trained as a lawyer. There is a huge omission in Mr. Alexander’s output- he left out the legal position of my contract termination as investigated by the office of the Ombudsman.
Two senior counsels were employed to advise the Ombudsman – Miles Fitzpatrick and Stephen Fraser. In lengthy submissions that were detailed and erudite, the findings of both lawyers are replete with citations from case studies. They both argued that the termination was a violation of several statutes of the University, particularly Statute 25.
I would suggest that the research of both of these lawyers be made available to UG law students because they were absolutely brilliant and should be made available to the University because it will guide the UG administration in future terminations that could save them hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. Please contact me for a copy of each. All civil lawyers need to read what these two attorneys researched.
Both senior counsels unambiguously stated in their submissions to the Ombudsman that I should litigate against the University. I did not simply because it is not within my character to sue people. At the time of my contract termination, several lawyers agreed to sue UG but I had no stomach for another court case given all the libel cases I was enduring at the time.
Here is an interesting dimension of the Ombudsman’s involvement that I never published before. I met the Ombudsman, Justice Winston Moore, and asked him what the difference was between the Ombudsman’s position and the two lawyers’ submission. It was then I learnt that the Ombudsman does not investigate but sources out the investigation.
Justice Moore told me that the Ombudsman never comes to conclusions on his own but seeks the paid consultancies of lawyers so that that Ombudsman would not be accused of personal bias. I didn’t know that. He then told me that since he accepted the detailed report of Messrs Fitzpatrick and Fraser, then it becomes the Ombudsman’s findings. I left his office with deep chagrin when I asked him, “Where do we go from here?” I remember his curious smile so vividly. He replied; “The findings are out there – what more do you want from me?”
Finally, deep down in my heart I could never accept that President Ramotar did not have anything with my contract termination. It had just five months remaining. My removal came ten days after President Ramotar was sworn in as President at the end of November 2011. Surely, that could not be coincidental.
Why did Jagdeo from 1999 to 2011 never seek to remove me? Because I think President Ramotar got personal with me over Mark Benschop’s relentless exposure of his son over the accident in which my nephew’s leg was crushed. Benschop has the tape with Ramotar raging over Benshop’s involvement. As soon as he became President, that was the end of me at UG. I honestly felt that APNU+AFC government should have righted the wrong that Ramotar did to me at UG, but I guess that is all in the past and life goes on. It has to. It must.
Yours truly,
Frederick Kissoon

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