Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe

By Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

THE JUNIOR Doctors' Association and its Central Executive have won their appeal against a ruling by Chief Justice Lensley Wolfe that they were in contempt of court for breaching an injunction issued by him for them to return to work.

Yesterday's court ruling means that members of the Central Executive will not have to perform the 200 hours of community service imposed on each of them for breaching the court order because the wrong procedure was used to bring the matter before the court.

The Hon. Ian Forte, President of the Court of Appeal, in handing down the unanimous decision, warned the doctors that the court was not condoning disobedience of an order of the court. "Persons should respect the order of the court and we hope this will never be repeated," he warned.

"It is not that we condone what they did. We are looking strictly at the law," he added.

The Junior Doctors and their executive had filed seven grounds of appeal but when the appeal came for hearing yesterday before Mr. Justice Forte, Mr. Justice Donald Bingham and Mr. Justice Ransford Langrin, the judges said they would prefer to hear the parties on Ground 1 of the appeal.

Ground 1 stated that the "Chief Justice erred in law in making a contempt of court order in these proceedings in that they were and have since been held to be a nullity by this Honourable Court in a June 19, 2000 decision. The basis of the decision was that the Junior Doctors' Association and the Central Executive of the Junior Doctors' Association, who were named as the respondents below, each had no legal personality. In the circumstances, the individual appellants were not parties to the proceedings and the learned Chief Justice therefore had no legal basis to make a contempt-of-court order against them."

Lawyers from the Attorney-General's Department have announced that the Government will be taking the matter to the United Kingdom Privy Council.

Attorney-at-law Richard Small and Norman Davis who represented the Junior Doctors and their executive argued that had the matter gone to the Chief Justice's attention he would have been obliged on his own motion to have taken the point and give the applicant (the Attorney-General) the chance to start de novo (anew). Mr. Small referred to the fact that the Court of Appeal had said in an earlier ruling that the appellants were not legal entities capable of being sued and therefore the proceeding was a nullity.

Mr. Small said the effect of the Court of Appeal's order was that no proceedings were started because there were no defendants. He said there were no persons against whom the injunction could have been issued. He pointed out also that in the instant case there was nothing in existence which could be obeyed or was addressed to anyone who could be punished for not obeying the order.

Douglas Leys, Deputy Solicitor General, argued on behalf of the Attorney General that he did not think there was any dispute that once there was an order of the court, it had to be obeyed until it was set aside. He said there was no doubt that the appellants regarded the court order as one which was directed at them. He referred to the history of the case and the fact that the appellants had apologised to the court for breaching the injunction.

The doctors had taken industrial action in March this year to protest against the non-settlement of their wage claims. The Industrial Disputes Tribunal had made a back-to-work order but the order was disobeyed.