Naming and shaming the Labour and Pensions Department

Mark Scotland, the former MLA from Bodden Town, finds himself in the unenviable position of having to clear his own name — a task in which the Cayman Compass will gladly assist.

Though Mr. Scotland is innocent, and indeed is not accused of any legal fault, his reputation has nevertheless been besmirched. The perpetrator? The Cayman Islands government, specifically the Department of Labour and Pensions, led by director Mario Ebanks. The accomplices? Gullible, careless and/or indifferent media outlets in Cayman.

Based on guidance we regularly receive from our attorneys, disseminating false information that erroneously links an individual to an unlawful act exposes the publisher of the untruth to possible criminal prosecution and civil retribution. In other words, it’s potentially libelous.

Here are the facts:

On Monday, Sept. 22, the Department of Labour and Pensions published a report on eight Summary Court cases involving alleged breaches of the Cayman Islands Labour Law, as part of the department’s continuing “name and shame” strategy for dealing with complaints about delinquent payments employers owe to employees.

Among the eight cases was one concerning ARCP Ltd., a paving and construction firm before the court on seven charges of “Failing to Pay Outstanding Wages.” The department’s report listed the names of three purported owners of the company, including Mr. Scotland.

On Tuesday, Sept. 23, several Cayman news outlets – online and broadcast – re-published the information received from the department, and each prominently highlighted Mr. Scotland as being a target of prosecution.

Within a matter of hours, dozens of comments had been posted to one online outlet, with “bloggers” levying pre-emptive, and largely negative, judgments on Mr. Scotland. One blamed his former political party: “The UDP disgrace continues.”
The problem, of course, is the information from the government was wrong – and so patently wrong that all it took to debunk it was a single telephone call.

We at the Compass made that call. Although we received the same information from government, rather than rushing to our keyboards to copy-and-paste from the official script, we acted as any professional news organization should: We picked up the phone and easily reached Mr. Scotland, who declared he hadn’t been an owner of ARCP since 2010. Nevertheless he had played an active role in actually helping the department come to an agreement with the company.

The inconvenient truth eventually reached department head Mr. Ebanks, who issued a hasty apology. The errant media outlets offered no such apology but pinned the mistake on Mr. Ebanks, who, in turn, and in typical government form, passed the buck to no one in particular, referencing a “case file manager” and “another officer,” both, of course, anonymous. (Apparently there is no “naming and shaming” in his own department.)

This sorry situation illustrates the dangers inherent in Mr. Ebanks’s quixotic “name and shame” strategy. Mr. Ebanks’s bosses should inform him that “shaming” is neither a proper function of government nor is it a part of his job description.
Further, the media should never be complicit in any government’s admitted and ill-advised mission to “shame” anyone. Punishment and moral sanction come after trial and conviction – not before.