office to embarrass a Bermudian woman who lost her job to a foreign worker, a Shadow Minister said this week.

Instead, he should be assisting her to negotiate the complex and often oblique route she will need to travel to obtain justice.

Shadow Minister of Home Affairs Alex Scott said he was alarmed by a story in Tuesday's Royal Gazette which outlined the difficulty Mrs. Delores Lightbourne has had obtaining redress after her complaints of job discrimination were upheld by the Human Rights Commission.

The HRC ruled in 1991 that Mrs. Lightbourne, who was employed temporarily as a companion/housekeeper for an elderly lady in 1989, had been discriminated against when her job was given to a foreign worker.

Mrs. Lightbourne has said that she has been trying to get compensation for five years without success.

In reply, Mr. Robinson said in a statement that delays in the process had been Mrs. Lightbourne's fault because she has not responded to either meetings, letters or phone calls.

Consequently, he said, if she does not appear before a Board of Inquiry when summoned in a few days' time, the ruling could be in favour of the family that discriminated against her.

"We have helped to bring Mrs. Lightbourne's case to this point,'' he said.

"This is a clear case of a Bermudian being discriminated against and the Human Rights Commission found this to be so.

"For the Labour Minister to say that he can do nothing for her and for Mr.

Robinson to use the weight of his office to broadside Mrs. Lightbourne is appalling and tantamount to abuse.

"He should be taking her by the hand and escorting her through the process.

After all it is she who was discriminated against. He is instead trying to embarrass her but she is the victim.'' Mr. Scott said this case underscored a widely held view that the Human Rights Commission was a "toothless, useless'' body.

He said Mrs. Lightbourne's victory was null and void because the Board will make its ruling independent of the HRC.

And the Attorney General's Chamber's "aids and abets'' this process when it chooses not to act, he said.

"If there are no laws on which they can act then they should take steps to strengthen them so that this will not happen any more,'' he said. Human Affairs Minister Jerome Dill said he could not comment on the case.