ALFRED Grayson, the ousted dean of discipline at Hopewell High School in Hanover, is heading to the Privy Council after the Court of Appeal upheld a Supreme Court ruling denying his request for a judicial review of his dismissal.

In its December 20, 2024 ruling, the Court of Appeal said, “The approach of an appellate court in matters involving the exercise of a judge’s discretion is well settled. This court will not disturb such a decision unless in the exercise of that discretion the learned judge erred on a point of law or her interpretation of the facts.”

In a unanimous decision the court added: “Having found no basis on which to interfere with the learned judge’s exercise of her discretion, the appeal should be dismissed with costs to the respondent.”

But on Friday, attorney-at-law Hugh Wildman, who is representing Grayson, told the Jamaica Observer that his client has instructed him to escalate the matter to the Judicial Committee of the United Kingdom Privy Council.

“He [Grayson] does not accept that the court agrees that he should have been allowed to call his witness during the disciplinary hearing, which the panel refused, and still dismissed his appeal. He has given me instructions to start the process to take this to the Privy Council,” said Wildman.

“I will be doing that shortly because he believes the ruling is contradictory,” added Wildman.

Grayson was appointed to the post of dean of discipline at Hopewell High on January 1, 2018. Shortly after, issues arose surrounding his lack of punctuality, absences from the school’s campus without permission during work hours, and the non-submission of reports required by the Ministry of Education.

In a series of written communications the principal reminded Grayson of the hours of work and “encouraged” him to “make adjustments on [his] punctuality pattern and stop leaving the campus during working hours to attend to other duties elsewhere”.

In his oral response to the allegation Grayson indicated to the principal that his lack of punctuality was due to his “sending the students to school, which was a part of [his] job description”.

In a letter dated March 2019, the chairman of the school board wrote to Grayson indicating that he was charged with neglect of duties, inefficiency, persistent unpunctuality, and professional misconduct.

Grayson was also informed that a hearing was scheduled before the personnel committee and that a friend or an attorney could accompany him.

At the hearing, when questioned about his absences from the school’s campus on the relevant dates, Grayson, who represented himself, claimed that the principal had given him permission but the principal denied this.

Grayson further told the hearing that on two of those occasions being complained about, he had left the campus in the company of the school’s nurse to transport a sick child to hospital. He indicated that the nurse could be called to substantiate his evidence.

But the committee’s chairman stated that there was no need to call the nurse as a witness as the committee had accepted that aspect of Grayson’s evidence.

The committee found Grayson guilty of the charges and recommended that he be dismissed.

Grayson took the matter to court and argued that his dismissal was illegal as he was denied the opportunity of calling witnesses to support his defence against the charges as this was refused by the personnel committee.

He further argued that the decision to terminate his employment was illegal, null and void and of no effect.

But when the matter was heard in the Supreme Court, Justice Anne-Marie Nembhard refused the relief and declaration sought by Grayson and rejected his claim for judicial review.

Justice Nembhard found that although the chairman of the committee which heard the case erred in not allowing Grayson to call the school’s nurse as a witness, based on “The uncontradicted evidence of his unprofessional conduct… any tribunal which reheard the matter would, in all likelihood…” arrive at the same conclusion as the school board.

The judge further determined that the committee had breached regulation 57 by refusing Grayson’s application to call the nurse as a witness. She also considered whether that ruling affected the fairness of the proceedings and concluded that, based on the circumstances, it did not.

“The learned judge concluded… that no injustice had been done to the appellant [Grayson] as, ‘given his position; his gross dereliction of his duties; and his responses at the hearing before the committee, dismissal was the only just result’. Her approach cannot be faulted,” declared the Court of Appeal in its judgment.