Attorney Lackston Robinson's legal battle with the Public Service Commission (PSC) to keep his job as senior assistant attorney general has resurfaced with Robinson's application to the Supreme Court late last month for a stay in the PSC's decision to transfer him to the Tax Administration Services Department (TASD).

In a claim filed on November 29, Robinson has asked the court to determine whether it is lawful for the PSC to transfer him, given that Mr Justice Roy Jones, in a judgement handed down in the Supreme Court on July 31, 2007, ruled that he was entitled to be reinstated to his job in the Attorney-General's Department.

Robinson also wants the court to say whether it is lawful for the PSC to ignore orders being sought in a civil appeal now before the Privy Council in relation to his employment, and whether letters written to him by the PSC's chief personnel officer, Jacqueline Hinkson, advising him of his transfer, have any validity.

Robinson was sent on vacation in April 2002 after he had filed proceedings in the Supreme Court against the members of the PSC who had refused him the job of solicitor-general.
On July 23, 2002, he asked for a judicial review to quash the PSC's decision to send him on leave. He lost the case and in his affidavit filed on November 29 this year, said that the PSC wrote to him on March 6, 2003 informing him that it had advised the governor-general to retire him and that the governor-general had agreed with the recommendation.

Robinson said that on April 23, 2003, he sought a judicial review to quash the PSC's advice to the governor-general. The suit and claim, he said, were heard by Mr Justice Roy Jones who ruled in his favour on July 31 this year.

Robinson, in court papers, said he was contacted by Hinkson on August 27 who, in a letter, asked him to contact her. He spoke to her two days later and was invited to a meeting "to discuss my reinstatement to duties consequent on the order made by the Supreme Court on the 31st July 2007".

The meeting, he said, was held on August 30 and the following day he wrote to Hinkson advising her of his willingness to resume duties once they could reach an agreement on a reasonable resumption date.

However, in a letter dated September 6, 2007, Hinkson told Robinson that the PSC had assessed the needs of the Public Service, including those of the Attorney General's Department, and after considering his skills and experience had decided to assign him to the Tax Administrative Services Department in the post of deputy commissioner.

He was expected, Hinkson said, to report for duties to the head of department, Grace Rookwood, on September 17, 2007.

Hinkson attached a job specification and description for Robinson, acknowledged that he had an appeal pending at the Privy Council and advised him that the PSC would "comply with any order or determination" made by the London-based court.

In response, Robinson's attorneys, Livingston, Alexander and Levy, on September 13 wrote to Hinkson advising her that their client was not prepared to assume the new position, because it was in contravention of the Supreme Court order.

However, in a letter dated September 24, 2007, Nicole Foster-Pusey, director of Litigation in the Attorney-General's Chambers, wrote to Robinson's lawyers, saying that the PSC had asked the Attorney-General's Department to respond and that the department did not share Livingston, Alexander and Levy's interpretation of the Supreme Court judgement.

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