PHILIPSBURG–The Civil Service Court has ruled in favour of former Minister of Public Housing, Spatial Planning, Environment and Infrastructure (VROMI) Angel C. Meyers against the VROMI secretary-general’s decision to remove him from his position as head of the Permits Department.
The Court ruled on November 19 that the contested decision of March 27, 2018, should be nullified.
The defendants in this case, the Governor of St. Maarten and the Minister of VROMI, were ordered to pay Meyers’ legal costs in these procedures, which were estimated at NAf. 1,400.
According to Article 3 in the National Ordinance Political Authorities, a civil servant accepting the post of a cabinet minister will become non-active in his former position. When the civil servant ceases to be a minister he is to be reinstated in his former position, unless he was terminated previously.
In the proceedings, VROMI successfully pointed out that it had never taken a decision to reinstate Meyers, as no decision was ever made to put Meyers on non-active duty after he became a minister.
However, the Court still found Meyers’ objection well-founded, because the contested decision against his reinstatement as department head could not be supported by the statement of reasons on which the ministry had based it.
Meyers was appointed head of the Permit Department as per April 1, 2011. He became VROMI minister on November 27, 2015, and was honourably discharged on December 26, 2016. No National Decree was ever made to make him inactive.
The Secretary-General at the VROMI Ministry informed Meyers in a WhatsApp message in January 2017 that he was to resume his duties at the ministry as per April 1, 2017, after the National Security Service VDSM had issued a certificate of no objection on March 30, 2017.
Meyers received a letter from the minister titled “Attitude unbecoming a civil servant” in June 2017 in which it was stated that he had not followed a number of instructions. He was advised to change his attitude and to follow up on all requests of the minister’s cabinet. The letter, which was repealed later, also stated that disciplinary measures could be taken.
The minister wrote a memo to the secretary-general on June 16, 2017, in which it was stated: “Over the past few weeks, Meyers has been functioning as head of the Permits Department. To date no advice has been received or approved by my person appointing Meyers as official head of the Permits Department. I am completely dissatisfied with the performance of Meyers thus far and his attitude leaves a lot to be desired. …
“Taking the aforementioned into consideration, it is my decision that effective immediately Meyers is to be removed from functioning as head of the Permits Department. … In light of the abovementioned, Meyers is to be reappointed as acting head of Permits Department effective immediately until further notice.”
According to VROMI, Meyers was automatically removed from his job once he became a minister, as a minister cannot be a civil servant at the same time. There are no guarantees about a return in the old position, and every official knows that. The fact that the complainant did not receive an explicit decision about it when he became minister does not alter this, VROMI said.
The ministry further pointed out that the Governor had not played a role and had not made any decision on this matter.
Meyers pointed out that during his brief stint as a minister his position had not been filled but taken by an interim, and he contested that he had not done a proper job.
In the Court’s view, the question whether an official, after having served as a minister, has a right to return to his former position did not need to be answered in these proceedings.
When Meyers became minister, his position was not filled. During the hearing of this case it was not disputed that until Meyers’ return to the ministry an interim had sat in his position.
Furthermore, from the WhatsApp conversations between Meyers and the secretary-general the Court derived that it was the intention that Meyers, after his resignation as minister, would return as the Permits Department’s head.
The WhatsApp conversations do not literally state this in so many words, but it is confirmed by the application for a security screening.
“Once the positive results of the security screening were known, the complainant went directly to work in that function. At that time, the position was still not filled by another person. … In short, it means that the complainant had already returned to his post when the letter and the memo were written. The memo itself also mentions that the complainant has been functioning for some time,” the Court stated.
Source: The Daily Herald https://www.thedailyherald.sx/islands/83173-civil-service-court-rules-in-favour-of-ex-minister-meyers
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