On August 11th, 1999, the Appellant, the Director of Audit for Grenada wrote the Prime Minister of Grenada an offensive and immoderate letter. This letter alleged that the Prime Minister had tampered with the audit reports which the Director of Audit had submitted to him for him to lay before Parliament and that he had no such authority to tamper with said audit reports. The Prime Minister was very upset by this letter and immediately set in motion the procedure as prescribed under Section 87 of the Constitution of Grenada to have the Appellant removed from office. The Prime Minister wrote to the Chairman of the Public Service Commission requesting that he ask the Governor-General to set up a Tribunal to inquire into the Appellant's conduct and to determine whether she ought to be removed from office for misbehaviour. The Tribunal was duly convened and advised the Governor General that the Appellant should be removed from office for misbehaviour which the Governor General duly did by letter dated March 10th, 1999.
DECISION: The issue for decision before the Privy Council was whether the Appellant's letter to the Prime Minister of August 11th, 1999 was properly held to constitute "misbehaviour in office" such as to warrant her dismissal as Director of Audit. A majority of the Privy Council were of the view that the Appellant's writing of the letter fell within the purview of behaviour at law. Moreover, the Privy Council was of the view that misbehaviour is to be determined by reference to the effect of the conduct on the capacity of the person to hold the office and that if the office is likely to be brought into disrepute by the conduct of the holder of the office then that would amount to misbehaviour. Therefore, the Privy Council was of the view that the writing of the intemperate letter of August 11th, 1999 with copies to the Clerk of Parliament, aggravated by the unfounded accusations by the Appellant and her failure to promptly withdraw same was properly deemed conduct unbecoming of a Director of Audit. As a result, the Privy Council held that the Respondent was properly removed from the office of Director of Audit for misbehaviour in office in accordance with the Constitution of Grenada.
