Labour Minister Quinton Edness was wrong to refer an outstanding dispute involving five sacked hotel workers to arbitration, a lawyer said yesterday.

And Mr. Edness improperly exercised his discretion when he failed to comply with the procedures set out in the Labour Relations Amendment Act 1991.

Jai Pachai, lawyer for the Sonesta Beach Hotel, Southampton Princess, Marriott Castle Harbour Resort and the Belmont Hotel, made these assertions in the Supreme Court yesterday.

Mr. Pachai said the Minister's decision should be overturned because the law required both parties (the hotels and the BIU) to agree to arbitration voluntarily.

Since neither party was prepared to do that, he said the Minister was incorrect to order the matter to arbitration.

Moreover, Mr. Pachai said, the long delay -- one case is four-and-a-half years old and the others more than a year old -- is a further source of worry.

He said the whole purpose of the amended legislation was to create a "summary and speedy'' method of resolving labour disputes in the hotel industry.

"Illegality will be the ground because the Minister has a duty to comply with the legislation,'' Mr. Pachai argued. "He failed to do so and he has no power to do what he did. He improperly exercised his discretion.'' The case arose after five BIU members, MacDonald Mackie Simmons, William Bassett, Dennis Lottimore, Irving Bean and Jamaine Butterfield were fired from their jobs.

Mr. Simmons was fired in 1991 from the Southampton Princess, Mr. Bassett from Castle Harbour in 1993, Mr. Lottimore from the Belmont Hotel in 1994, and Mr.

Bean and Mr. Butterfield terminated from Sonesta Beach also in 1994.

Each of the matters was placed before the BIU for resolution and initially all the procedures required by the collective agreement were followed with various degrees of success.

Mr. Pachai said there was a delay of between one and four-and-a-half years and the matters are still unresolved.

And based on the spirit of the legislation which was intended to end disputes quickly, the Minister should have acted sooner.

"I do not believe that the court will find that there was a justifiable delay in these cases,'' Mr. Pachai said. "Mr. Simmons was terminated in 1991. Can it be right and fair that at this late stage of the game the Minister should send these matters to arbitration?'' Solicitor General Barrie Meade, who opposed the overturning of the decision, said the Minister was not constrained either by the collective agreement or the legislation because his decision did not have a pre-set time limit.

Moreover Mr. Meade said he had a "fundamentally different'' interpretation of the Labour Relations Act and in his view the delay was not a ground for the original decision to be quashed.

Mr. Meade said the disputes which began in 1991 through 1995 were being considered at a time of unrest because of ongoing difficulties between the Hotel Employers of Bermuda and the Bermuda Industrial Union.

Consequently, he said, the Minister thought it best to wait until after those matters were resolved before committing these five cases to arbitration.

He said the climate at the time was not conducive to a settlement being reached by mediation, conciliation or arbitration.

"Not every error of law justifies judicial interference,'' he said. "Only if the decision maker would have made a different decision but for the procedural irregularity should the courts intervene.''