Dear Sir,

I don’t know why neither the Ombudsman nor the Minister of Home Affairs has said so publicly, but I do happen to know that the “Professional” whose case they are arguing over is a veterinarian who conducted a 17-year legal challenge to the Government’s decision in the 1990s not to appoint her to the chief civil service veterinary post.

Her case, in which she contended that refusal to appoint her to the job was a racist act, was taken up by the judiciary, the Human Rights Commission and, remarkably, the previous Ombudsman, Arlene Brock. She got nowhere. A government lawyer involved in arguing the case said that, in his view, the matter should never have been allowed to proceed as far as it did.

“I would say this has cost Government in excess of $300,000 in manpower, legal fees and court time,” he said. “I don’t think her claim ever had any merit.”

The “Professional” was, at one time, taken on as a trainee government vet to enable her to pass an exam that would have been accepted by the local veterinary board. She failed the exam of the North American Board of Veterinary Examiners four times and the UK’s Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons exam once.

“The complainant had taken and failed the boards four times, an examination which evidence shows is passed by 98 per cent of candidates on first sitting, as well as failing the examination set by the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons,” said the Human Rights Commission board, which heard her case.

“Bearing in mind the duty of the investigating committee [set up under the Agriculture Act] to ensure that the complainant was properly qualified for the protection of the public, in our view they would have been negligent to give approval to the application.”

In 2009, the HRC asked Acting Minister of Culture Michael Scott to refer the complaint to a board of inquiry, but he refused.

In this context, it’s easy to see why Fahy is upset about his ministry being accused of maladministration, and being ordered to issue a grovelling apology to the complainant.

He and his officers were perfectly within their rights to deal with the case in the way that they did, so the charge of maladministration really is, as he called it, farcical.

What’s not so clear is why the Ombudsman, who is meant to be an honest broker in this kind of dispute, should have made it so obvious that her sympathies were with the veterinarian — copying her in on all correspondence with the ministry, for example.

My guess is that she knows perfectly well the minister is in the right, but felt that someone had to strike a blow against the establishment in support of this veterinarian, who has struggled for so long to try to make a charge of racism stick.

TAXMAN