Ex-security guard reaches out-of-court settlement with US Embassy

A former security guard at the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur who took the latter to court for alleged unfair dismissal discontinued his appeal at the Court of Appeal following an out-of-court settlement reached by both parties.

“As part of this settlement, a fair sum was paid to L Subramaniam on a ‘without admission of liability’ basis, marking the full and final resolution of the matter,” said PSM deputy chairperson S Arutchelvan in a statement today.

On April 3 this year, Subramaniam (above) approached the Court of Appeal to restore an RM66,000 award for alleged unfair dismissal.

His counsel from law firm Messrs Kesavan filed the notice of appeal against the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruling on April 1 which quashed an Industrial Court ruling.

Last year, the Industrial Court awarded RM66,000 to Subramaniam over his unlawful dismissal from the US Embassy in Kuala Lumpur 16 years ago.

The US Embassy then turned to the civil court to quash the ruling.

No absolute immunity

On that note, Arutchelvan said it was a tough case taking into account who Subramanian was up against.

However, the PSM leader noted the struggle, in a way, set a new precedent and gave hope to many employees in foreign missions.

“This case created some very important precedent in the country’s legal history as the Federal Court on June 20, 2022, held that there is no absolute immunity and the Industrial Court is, in fact, the appropriate and proper forum to ascertain the question of the restrictive doctrine of sovereign immunity.

“This decision means the embassies which had previously dismissed their workers arbitrarily or summarily whilst hiding behind the doctrine of sovereign immunity, will now be unable to do so,” Arutchelvan said.

In addition, he said the case also triggered the Dewan Negara to pass the Jurisdictional Immunities of Foreign States Bill 2023 on April 1 this year.

The bill is aimed at regulating the immunity granted to foreign states, as well as their assets, heads of state and government leaders, from the jurisdiction of Malaysian courts.

“The amended bill has omitted employment and embassies now cannot use immunity on employment matters.

“We would like to thank the government for this very important amendment which will ensure a similar situation faced by Subramaniam will not arise again,” he mentioned.

From the onset, the US Embassy’s legal team contended that the Industrial Court had no jurisdiction to hear the case involving Subramaniam’s 2008 dismissal.

However, in his ruling delivered on April 27 last year, Industrial Court chairperson Amrik Singh said the US Embassy failed to provide evidence of misconduct against Subramaniam.

According to the written ruling, Amrik noted that the US Embassy’s legal team spent a large portion of their submissions stating the Industrial Court had no jurisdiction to hear the case, rather than providing evidence over Subramaniam’s alleged misconduct linked to unauthorised leave of absence.

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