UHM injunction blocks Tax Commissioner from restarting employment selection process

A judge has upheld a request for a warrant of prohibitory injunction filed by the UHM against the Tax Commissioner, stopping it from restarting a process selecting candidates for debt collector posts in the Office of the Commissioner for Inland Revenue.

The union, together with four public service employees, had filed an application requesting the injunction in February, after the Tax Commissioner had cancelled the results of a selection board, citing non-observance of procedure by that board.

The defendants contended that the decision to declare the process to have been void had come after one participant had filed a complaint about his result. It was during the investigation into this complaint that the Commission had noticed that the selection board had not been appointed in accordance with the applicable directives and guidelines. It had therefore cancelled the results, appointed a new selection board and started the process from scratch.

A UHM representative had testified that no reason for the cancellation had been given to the candidates and its request that the defendant identify the procedure which had not been followed was not replied to.

Mr. Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon, presiding over the First Hall of the Civil Court, upheld the request, decreeing that the plaintiffs did appear, at first glance, to have a right that could only be safeguarded by the injunction - in the absence of which, the impact they would suffer was disproportionately large in comparison to that potentially suffered by the Commissioner, were the injunction to be granted.