Court orders CoP to give back officers’ vacation
(CNS): The police commissioner’s move to change the policy on shift patterns for uniform officers in the RCIPS that effectively deprived many of them of a chunk of their annual leave entitlement was unlawful, a court has found. The police association and two named officers challenged the policy under a judicial review, in particular the increase in the length of a day under the new shift pattern from seven and a half to eleven hours and how that cut their vacation allowance.
The case was heard last year before Acting Justice Kirsty-Ann Gunn, and her judgment, which was delivered in December, was recently posted to the public access registry on the court’s website.
It revealed that the uniform officers had won their case and that the policy should be revoked in relation to the calculation. Justice Gunn said the police commissioner’s “decision and actions… were unlawful” and that the calculation should revert to a 7½-hour working day to calculate the holiday entitlement of officers employed before 1 January last year, when the policy was adopted.
Before the shift policy for uniform police was rolled out, officers had been working shifts of 7½ hours, working six days on, four days off. But Commissioner Derek Byrne introduced a new shift pattern that required the same officers to work 12-hour shifts, four days on, four days off. Each day was calculated at eleven hours, taking an hour off for lunch.
Attorney Guy Dilliway-Parry, who represented the uniform officers, argued that the change to the working day cut the annual holiday time for some officers from 22 days to 15. In the past, to comply with the personnel rules relating to public servants’ holidays, police officers had a minimum of 165 hours of leave each year.
For decades that was calculated by dividing 165 hours by 7½, but the new calculation was divided by 11 hours. While officers were receiving more days off as rest time, they were also working much longer shifts and still putting in a minimum of 48 hours over the course of a week. The lawyer argued that the shift pattern was not an equitable compensation for the reduction in actual paid leave, which was still a breach of the statute.
While the commissioner had introduced a discretionary additional 15 days leave for officers on shift to match the holiday given to non-shift officers, the court found it was not sufficient to meet the requirements of the law. The judge described the change in policy as an abuse of power that undermined officers’ legitimate expectation of formal annual leave, since the discretionary additional time off was not guaranteed.
CNS contacted the RCIPS for comment on the findings of the court and the enforced change of policy, and a spokesperson provided the following response: “Please note that this judgment stands appealed, in which circumstances we are not in a position to make any statement until the decision is received.”
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This police association which is filled up with non Cayman are always suing the government and getting millions.when Caymanian police officers were in charge they got absolutely nothing and some were even forced to leave or resigned and blatantly robbed of vacation and overtime .Even their police association mandatory fees were not even given back to them . This is the terrible injustices that have gone on in this place for far too long now. Whilst the people from elsewhere have come buying homes here and overseas and moving to various higher paying jobs in Government our local officers are driving a Taxis and working as security officers jobs. Pure BS going here in Cayman
First of all, the court has never ordered any monies to anyone represented or supported by the police association.
Some people who were owed pension by the government got back some of their pension monies by court orders, but that was their money that they worked for and never got, while Caymanians got their pension routinely, so I would hope you are not speaking to this.
No one is robbed of vacation time or overtime in the RCIPS. Instead, officers fail to properly document their time or take their leave as required by law. The police is forced to follow the law and cannot pay monies without proper authority; they are forced to manage the people’s money according to law. Would you have it any other way?
If you ever find evidence of a single instance of the claims you make here, please do not hesitate to write your complaint pointing to the evidence, to the Complaints Commissioner at https://ombudsman.ky
HSA nurses do more work in 12hrs than these idiots. And their overtime pay is so tiny. What about our health care workers who are being overworked and are understaffed? It’s time that every government facility get an upgrade in everything,
If the nurses are not paid the correct overtime payment then this must be corrected as their services are certainly needed and appreciated. However to call the police idiots was uncalled for. Both jobs are important and vital as one protects and the other saves lives. Respect should be given to both lines of work.
Nurse: Administering life saving treatments and caring for the ill – Angels.
Police: Refusing to even investigate let alone prosecute hundreds of instances of pension monies being stolen by unscrupulous employers from the most vulnerable in society. – Idiots.
Janice, surely you understand the distinction?
When the police start consistently enforcing laws without fear or favor they might start to earn the respect the community holds for its nurses. I support them in their efforts, but too many of them have some way to go.
You’re right. I shouldn’t say Idiots, BUT were the killers that attempted to commit mass murder at Vic’s bar have been found on an island that’s about 26 miles long? Why are young kids imprisoned for smoking a Lil weed when a high percentage of our population are decedents from Jamaica, and many of our influences come from there? Let’s not forget that many of our officers have anger control issues… idk I can mention a lot. I gotta give it to the ones that do no bad, but what are they doing to make things better for everyone, or is this all cops and rubbers game????
Wrong department lol the police don’t enforce the pension law they deal with penal offenses.
The department of Labour and pension enforces the pension law
When you steal money and fraudulently misrepresent the pay details that is theft and it is fraud. It is entirely the responsibility of the police. A responsibility they have shirked for a decade. Idiots. Idiots who won’t even indicate.
Stealing pension monies (or anything else) is a penal offense!!!! Creating and filing force paperwork to mask your crime is fraud and that is a penal offense!!!! Refusing to do your job in the face of overwhelming evidence, particularly when motivated by a desire not to step on the toes of the influential and connected is maladministration, and that is a penal offense!!! Idiot is too kind of descriptor. Police with your attitude are society-destroying scum.
Deducting money from employee salaries and pocketing it yourself is theft!!! The police refusing to EVER do anything about it, while hundreds of the most vulnerable suffer in consequence is criminal.
It is theft. It is not funny. And no one enforces any law.
Police save lives?
Revenue collectors
Police don’t get paid overtime, it’s not the same…ediot
Clearly they don’t. YOU USELESS
HSA Nurses make around $28-$40 per hour rgular work hours times that by 1.5 for overtime, I would say that works out well for $42-$60 per hour for overtime and no taxes or pension deductions. Thats not a bad overtime rate.
Anyone who thinks the CoP came up with that idea of changing shift policies hasn’t a clue. He was told what to do by the ‘upper clown echelon’.
The only problem with this police force and in fact the majority of police forces worldwide is the basic standard of education or lack thereof that makes up their numbers. There is only one other job that needs less education and that is being a politician.
Practically the only job on the planet where you can be a complete dunce and hold some of the more important roles in a Government.
That’s the scariest thing that needs to be sorted out.
Do you not realize the CoP was following the directions of the then Government? Wow…. They instructed the RCIPS. SMH at the total lack of knowledge.
Nope. Following instructions from the Governor’s Office. The COP reports to the Governor who has oversight. Regardless of what the politicians wanted the Governor and Deputy (who also wears the hat of head of the civil service) had the last say. Those two are responsible for allowing this mess. If they had a smart Attorney General advising them, they would also have known that this was legally wrong.
The real Teflon don.
Excellent to see democracy working
Yes, but it’s unfortunate that it had to come to this.
PACT Government is going to need to borrow too much money to pay for this and other judicial review and constitutional proceedings, where Government and public officials have infringed human rights of Caymanians and local residents.
It’s your debt not theirs
Correct. Perhaps that explains it all: they don’t care, because it’s not their personal finances, but rather the general public.
Hasn’t it always been that way?
Plus the same guy that punished CB and LC with restrictions and no going on beach or fishing because of things GC did!!! Crazy!!!
How stupid to kill an entire system and economy!!! Open up and drop all mandates!!! England has why not Cayman Islands? Politics.
What England does is not necessarily good for the Cayman Islands, that’s why. Perhaps you have not lived in England, or have been away for too long. Believe me, their mess does not need to be duplicated here.
The CoP should be entitled to whatever appeals are allowed by law. However, if he ultimately is unsuccessful in his appeals there needs to be some accountability. I encourage the CoP to start thinking about who will be held accountable for these potentially unlawful decisions.
The RCIPS is in not as corrupt as it was because of him. Get over it!
Why are they at all corrupt ?
Bad apples in all.
Only if you don’t act swiftly to remove them, and smash them with such vigor to dissuade any other apples from turning sour.
50+ kilos of cocaine going missing from the police vault inside the Central Police Station on 2 separate occasions hints at some level of corruption when no arrests were made and they have CCTV within the station / vault?
Why should the Commissioner be held accountable for anything, he is a Govt employee and this is one of their perks, like free medical treatment.
Kudos to the Officers who stood up for what is right.
Unfortunately we are likely to see more of this type of action for refusing to follow principles of natural justce. Not just with the RCIPS staff, but regular citizens as well.
Yes. PPM, in particular, breached many private citizens human rights as well.
The PACT, it seems, has bought and now owns much of what PPM messed up, because the PACT has decided to not reverse what PPM did.
Politicians had nothing to do with these decisions … read the constitution for once
All police should be terminated in 6 months, and paid what they are due. New contracts should be offered to qualified applicants (including many of the officers we currently have) which provide appropriate benefits and leave entitlements, and a proportion need to be recruited from somewhere other than our Caribbean neighbors.
The status quo will just continue our descent into lawlessness and will bankrupt us.
Terminating employees and then offering them their jobs back on reduced terms wouldn’t survive judicial review either.
It does if you pay them out all entitlements.
Aren’t they cops on vacation while on the clock too? They do nothing all day.
Yes. RCIPS don’t do their job. It seems that, when they can make a drug bust and then sell seized drugs, guns and ammunition, is when they are most motivated, because it benefits them personally. RCIPS are the biggest drug dealers in the Cayman Islands.
Who did CoP take legal advice from to come up with these changes to the employment contracts? There is no way he thought this was legal.
the irish are awesome…but this is the guy who closed the beaches during covid cos his officers could not do their basic job
Swimming in the ocean & walking in open air on a beach in +85* weather had then(and still has now) practically zero chance of transmitting Covid to another person, but lets deny all in Cayman that one privilege for more than 2 months, to fit the panic driven narrative of the Government’s & Health Services non-science based mandates.
The beach ban came about because of a small minority that interpreted exercise on the beach in your bubble as party with your mates and get p**sed.
As with certain dominoes players and other individuals that spoilt it for the majority
But if the police had come down hard on those that abused it, the rest of us could have kept our basic freedoms. The police failed in their role. That simple.