A week after Justice Carlisle Greaves warned employers not to dismiss employees selected for jury duty, he put them on notice that substantial fines would be imposed on all found guilty of taking any such action.
Speaking in Supreme Court No. 3 on Tuesday, he disclosed that employees were still being terminated while performing their civic duty.
“Some of these employers feel they bad. Some still firing people after what I said…. So we are going to have to drag some of these people down here,” Justice Greaves said.
He cited Section 25A of the Juries Act, and urged employers to get familiar with the law.
“I am not skylarking with y’all,” he warned guilty employers. “Try and give back the people their jobs.”
Subsection 2 of that section of the Juries Act states: “No employer shall, whether directly or indirectly, by intimidation, undue influence or in any other way prevent or attempt to prevent an employee summoned for jury service from answering the summons.”
According to Subsection 3, “No employer shall (a) make any deduction from the pay or other remuneration of an employee; or (b) otherwise penalise the employee, by reason of the employee’s absence from work on jury service.”
Subsection 4 notes: “Where an employee is absent from his employment for jury service, the employer shall be deemed to have made a deduction from the employee’s pay, if the employer does not pay the employee the amount that the employee would have earned but for his absence.”
It is stated in Subsection 6 that “An employer who contravenes this section is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine of $5 000 or to imprisonment for six months.”
Subsection 7 adds: “Where an employer who is a body corporate contravenes this section every director or manager of such body corporate who knew or ought to have known of the contravention is guilty of an offence and liable on summary conviction to a fine of $5 000 or to imprisonment for six months.”
Justice Greaves stressed: “Anytime there is a company that does it and feels like it can get away because it is a company, the law provides that the company can be found liable, every director who knew could be found liable, and manager and everybody who did it could be found liable. So it wouldn’t be just $5 000 and stop there. If you have ten directors and all guilty…all of them have to pay $5 000 each, if you butt up on a judge like me.”
Under Subsection 8, “It is a defence to a charge under subsection (6) or (7) for an accused to prove that the employee was excused pursuant to subsection (5) but did not return to his place of employment.”
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