An assistant head sacked following her claims of financial mismanagement has sued San Andrea School over her dismissal, claiming a breach of human rights in the way she was summarily fired.

Ruth Azzopardi filed a case in the First Hall of the Civil Court in its constitutional jurisdiction, claiming the school’s management had terminated her job without following the principles of natural justice. She said it acted as prosecutor, judge and juror in the disciplinary case it had started against her.

Azzopardi, who joined the school in 2000 and was appointed assistant head in 2018, claimed the disciplinary board that terminated her job was biased and did not allow her to defend herself from the accusations made against her.

Azzopardi was sacked following the findings of an inquiry by retired judge David Scicluna into allegations of wrongdoing at the school. The school’s former assistant head, Trevor Templeman, had alleged that the school board’s former chairman, Kevin Spiteri, had defrauded the school out of hundreds of thousands of euro.

Templeman had claimed a member of staff was paid €25,000 to keep quiet about the issue and that the school reassigned Templeman different duties using trumped-up cyberbullying charges. The inquiry concluded that the payout was a severance pay package.

Another key allegation was that Spiteri had taken €200,000 from school funds and that his company, KJM Enterprises, had made over €3 million from the school for infrastructural projects.

Judge Scicluna’s 73-page report also pointed to a historically pervasive attitude of bullying and said there were various red flags over how the private school was managing its finances.

The report made 30 recommendations to promote accountability and better governance at the school.

Since the allegations surfaced, Templeman and former school head Stefania Bartolo have resigned while assistant head Azzopardi was at first suspended and then had her job terminated.

In her constitutional application, signed by lawyers David Bonello and Chris Said, Azzopardi said the disciplinary board was composed of Matthew Xerri, a partner at legal firm Ganado Advocates which was assisting other people implicated in the scandal, as well as Adrian Giordano Imbroll and Daniel Galea who sat on the school’s strategic review committee.

They said that during the first disciplinary hearing she had raised the possible conflicts of interest but these were immediately thrown out, with the board members insisting they were independent.

A second meeting was held a week later for which Xerri was not present. Azzopardi insisted on demanding their recusal and warned them of constitutional proceedings in default. The meeting ended abruptly and a few hours later, she received an e-mail from the board informing her of her dismissal.

Azzopardi quoted copious case law in which the court declared that the principle of natural justice was a cornerstone of the right to a fair hearing. She, therefore, called on the court to declare that the decision to terminate her employment was not fair or impartial, went against the principle of natural justice and in breach of her fundamental right to a fair hearing. 

Separately, Azzopardi also filed a case before the Industrial Tribunal making similar arguments. She insisted that the termination was the school’s retaliation for acting as a whistleblower and for telling the truth about financial mismanagement at the school.