| GRENADA — Constitution — Misbehaviour in public office — Removal of Director of Audit for misbehaviour — Whether writing of intemperate and abusive letter to Finance Minister amounting to unbecoming conduct justifying removal for misbehaviour — Grenada Constitution Order 1973, Sch 1, s 87(6)
Lawrence v Attorney General of Grenada [2007] UKPC 18
PC: Lord Bingham of Cornhill, Lord Scott of Foscote, Lord Rodger of Earlsferry, Lord Carswell and Lord Mance: 26 March 2007
The writing of an intemperate and abusive letter by the Director of Audit to the Minister of Finance, who also happened to be Prime Minister of Grenada, and the sending of copies of the letter to the Clerk of Parliament and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, amounted to unbecoming conduct justifying removal from the public office of Director of Audit in accordance with s 87(6) of the Constitution of Grenada.
The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council so held by a majority (Lord Mance dissenting) when dismissing an appeal by the appellant, Julie Lawrence, from the decision of the Court of Appeal of Grenada to allow the Attorney General’s appeal from Alleyne J, who had set aside the decision of the Governor General to remover her from office as Director of Audit in accordance with s 87 of the Constitution of Grenada.
On 11 August 1999 the appellant had written to Dr Keith Mitchell, at the time both Minister of Finance and Prime Minister of Grenada, an intemperate and abusive letter and sent copies to the Clerk of Parliament and the Speaker of the House of Representatives. The minister had been so incensed by her behaviour that he had put in train the procedure for her removal from the public office of Director of Audit. A tribunal had been set up to inquire whether her conduct amounted to misbehaviour justifying her removal. The Governor General, in accordance with the tribunal’s unanimous recommendation, had informed the appellant of her removal from office for misbehaviour.
LORD SCOTT OF FOSCOTE, giving the judgment of the majority of the Board, said that s 82 of the Constitution made clear the constitutional importance of the office of Director of Audit who must act as watchdog on behalf of the public to guard against any impropriety in the conduct of the public finances of Grenada. The prescribed procedure for removal of the Director of Audit was set out in s 87(6)(7) and had to be complied with whether the removal was for incapacity or misbehaviour. For the purposes of s 87 of the Constitution and the present case, the questions which, in their Lordships’ opinion, needed to be asked were (1) whether the appellant’s conduct, in writing the letter to the minister and sending copies to the speaker and the clerk, affected directly her ability to carry out the duties and discharge the functions of the office of Director of Audit; (2) whether that conduct might affect the perceptions of others as to her ability to carry out those duties and discharge those functions; (3) whether to allow her to continue in office and continue to perform her duties would be perceived as inimical to the interests of good governance of Grenada; and (4) whether the important office of Director of Audit would be brought into disrepute as a result of that conduct. Their Lordships thought that the first question should be answered in the appellant’s favour. As to the second question, it seemed highly likely that the appellant’s letter would have affected the perceptions of the minister and, probably, also of the clerk and the speaker, as to her ability to discharge the functions of her office. Her duties must surely require a dispassionate and objective mind to be brought to bear. The content and tone of the letter would, in their Lordships’ opinion, be apt to raise doubts in the minds of those who read it as to whether she possessed that quality. The importance of the role of Director of Audit and of the role of Minister of Finance made it highly desirable in the interests of good governance of Grenada that the holders of those two offices should have a due respect for one another. A lack of respect by the Director of Audit for the Minister of Finance and the senior civil servants in his department might endanger the objectivity that should inform the director’s audit reports. A lack of respect by the minister for the director might tend to diminish the respect paid by the minister to the director’s reports. It seemed to their Lordships plain that a mutual lack of respect between the holders of the two offices would be inimical to the good governance of Grenada. The appellant’s letter, with its unfounded, and until very late in the day unwithdrawn, accusations against the minister of mutilating and, in effect, falsifying her reports indicated a lack of respect by her for him and could hardly have done other than produce a lack of respect by him for her. The third question, in their Lordships’ opinion, should be answered adversely to the appellant. As to the fourth question, their Lordships considered that the writing by a Director of Audit of such an intemperate letter as that of 11 August 1999, coupled with the sending of copies to the speaker and the clerk and aggravated by the appellant’s failure promptly to withdraw her unfounded accusations against the minister and to apologise for making them, would be well apt to bring the office of Director of Audit into disrepute. The description by the tribunal of the appellant’s conduct as “unbecoming a Director of Audit” was, in their Lordships’ opinion, an accurate assessment and by no means a misdirection. An answer unfavourable to the appellant to three of the four questions not only justified categorising the appellant’s conduct as “misbehaviour” for s 87 purposes but, in their Lordships’ opinion, validated also the tribunal’s recommendation that the misbehaviour warranted her removal from office. Their Lordships bore in mind, also, that none of the three members of the Court of Appeal had regarded that recommendation as an excessive reaction by the tribunal to the appellant’s misbehaviour.
LORD MANCE delivered a dissenting opinion.
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