KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC) — A High Court judge has ordered the St Vincent and the Grenadines Government to compensate a public servant with all the monies he would have earned had he not been fired in 2013 after 33 years of service.

Justice Esco Henry ordered Attorney General Judith Jones-Morgan to ensure that Sam, a career educator, receives full pay from the time he was suspended in 2012, with all benefits and full pension.

Sam was awarded cost and damages, both of which will be assessed in due course, according to his attorney Jomo Thomas, in a statement posted on the social website, Facebook.

“Otto Sam must be the happiest man in Kingstown today,” Thomas said, adding that the judgement “amounted to a devastating loss for the Public Service Commission, Colin John, chairman of the tribunal that sanctioned Mr Sam’s dismissal, [and] Judith Jones Morgan, the attorney general and the Government”.

In 2013, the Public Service Commission (PSC) fired Sam, after the tribunal, by a two-to-one verdict, found him guilty of breaking public service rules when he wrote a letter in two local newspapers one year earlier.

The letter spoke about the situation at the National Emergency Management Organisation (NEMO), to which Sam was transferred in 2010 from the South Rivers Methodist School, where he was head teacher.

John, who was assistant director of public prosecutions at the time, chaired the tribunal.

The tribunal also included Cecily Saunders, a retired public servant and Aldric Williams, a retired superintendent of police.

After the tribunal’s ruling, Saunders went public saying that she did not think that Sam was guilty of breaking the public service rules, as alleged.

Sam appealed to the Public Service Appeal Board, which upheld the tribunal’s ruling.

The St Vincent and the Grenadines Teachers’ Union then sought a judicial review of the decision of the appeal board.

“As the lead attorney in the firm that carried this case, I feel a sense of satisfaction to be associated with such an important case.

“Judicial review of State action is a powerful weapon. We must use it more often to vindicate and protect the rights of citizens,” added Thomas, who was appointed a government senator in 2013, and was elected Speaker of the House of Assembly last December, unopposed.

“This was a case in which the State sought to end the career of a teacher of more than 30 years because he wrote a letter. The court found the State actors to have acted improperly and illegally,” Thomas said.

He later told the Caribbean Media Corporation that he was “ecstatic” at the court’s decision.

“It’s my client. I am delighted that he prevailed. The law was with us,” Thomas said, adding “more and more, people need to understand that they do not have to accept whatever they are told by state actors”.