Leacock calls on Appeal Court to rule on vaccine mandate case

The Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court is doing “a disservice to the poor, working-class downtrodden people of our Caribbean and of our St. Vincent and the Grenadines” in the amount of time it is taking to rule on the appeal in the vaccine mandate case.

Central Kingstown MP, St. Clair Leacock expressed that view on Monday as he commented on the uptick in COVID-19 cases in SVG.

Hundreds of public sector workers lost their jobs under the vaccine mandate imposed by the Ralph Gonsalves government in late 2021.

The Public Service Union, Teachers’ Union and the Police Welfare Association sponsored a lawsuit against the government.

The High Court ruled on March 13, 2023, that the government acted illegally when it dismissed the workers.

However, the government appealed the ruling and the Court of Appeal heard the appeal on May 1 and has yet to hand down its decision.

Leacock spoke on Monday on New Times, the daytime programme of the opposition New Democratic for which he was acting president in the absence of party leader, Godwin Friday, who was overseas.

Leacock said there are Vincentians at home “catching they nennen, who have lost everything that they had, because they lost their work, their source of income, their ability to look after themselves because the government fire them over the COVID vaccine”.

He said that some of these dismissed workers have been unable to keep up with their children’s education.

“They can’t feed themselves properly. You have to do all kinds of unimaginable things to keep themselves alive — fundraisers, sell off what they have,” said Leacock, who is one of the NDP’s two vice-presidents.

“And they could be there in that position for near two years, a court has already decided that the people should be back to work and get their money in their pocket and people who drive around chauffeur-driven and their [straw] baskets and security detail and stiff collars and all the Oxfordian and other language, could be so insensitive to give a judgement on the case to give the people some relief?” Leacock said, referring to the judges.

“And I feel it is still the political fear. And then we talk about all our objections to the Privy Council and so on and so forth,” Leacock said.

“Come on, man. Come on. Come on, judges. Too many suffering in the land. … Let’s hear from you. Let’s hear from you. Our people have suffered enough over this vaccine mandate. How much more? How many more must die; as the song says? How many more must die?

“Have a heart. Have a heart. It pains me; it saddens me. It is really saddening,” the MP further said, but urged the nation to pay attention to the uptick in COVID-19 cases.

“Let’s pay attention. It’s on the uptick, it’s rising. We’re starting to get deaths again. And if that should happen, I believe it will get worse before it gets better. Because I don’t know that the public health department, the Ministry of Health, or any one of us, will be able to persuade people to go back to vaccines as a solution as, indeed, I’m not advocating.”

On Sunday, Gonsalves said that SVG has recorded two COVID-19 deaths amidst an uptick of cases of the illness that saw the country recording 125 COVID-19 cases this year, 89 of them in July.