Geisha Kow­lessar

A no-teeth Rot­tweil­er. That was the de­scrip­tion giv­en to the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) by its chair­man Pro­fes­sor Ramesh De­osaran yes­ter­day. He was speak­ing on the ap­point­ment of a high-pow­ered team to re­form the PSC at the com­mis­sion's of­fice, Queen's Street, Port-of-Spain. De­scrib­ing the ap­point­ment as an "his­toric oc­ca­sion" De­osaran said that was the first time the com­mis­sion had eval­u­at­ed it­self and em­barked on a re­form ex­er­cise. He said: "The pur­pose is al­so im­por­tant for the coun­try. The re­form is ded­i­cat­ed to hav­ing a more ef­fi­cient, re­li­able and ac­count­able Po­lice Ser­vice and in­stil prop­er and more ac­cept­able lev­els of fair­ness in terms of dis­ci­pline and pro­mo­tion."

An­oth­er rea­son he cit­ed for the re­form was to cre­ate a high­er lev­el of pub­lic safe­ty in T&T. He said: "The Po­lice Ser­vice can make a so­ci­ety go up or down and one of the as­sur­ances we need to have to en­able the ser­vice to be more ef­fi­cient is to have a more ef­fec­tive and ef­fi­cient over­sight gov­er­nance struc­ture. "The way things are to­day in the coun­try, with re­spect to crime, there needs to be some high­er or­der of ac­count­abil­i­ty." He said the re­view ex­er­cise be­gan in Sep­tem­ber this year through a meet­ing with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan. "A bi-par­ti­san pledge was made in Par­lia­ment about five years ago to have the leg­isla­tive and ad­min­is­tra­tive struc­ture of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) re­viewed with­in two years of its op­er­a­tions," De­osaran ex­plained.

But de­spite re­view ini­tia­tive the PSC's chair­man said un­less the com­mis­sion was giv­en "teeth" to car­ry out its man­date on­ly then could it be ef­fec­tive. He added: "Some­time I feel that the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion is like a no-teeth rot­tweil­er. "We have a big voice through the Con­sti­tu­tion but when your try to im­ple­ment the con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date you find your­self try­ing to go through sets of tiger wires." Ram­lo­gan, who ad­dressed com­mis­sion mem­bers, called for the ur­gent need to ex­er­cise fair pro­mo­tion­al prac­tices and en­sure there was a trans­par­ent dis­ci­pli­nary process with­in the Po­lice Ser­vice. He said sta­tis­tics must al­so be com­plied re­gard­ing the num­ber of of­fi­cers fac­ing dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ters and the rea­sons for the de­lay.

Ram­lo­gan said: "The sys­tem is one that drags the mat­ter through a me­an­der­ing and end­less path that leads to nowhere, ex­cept re­tire­ment. "The of­fi­cer is en­ti­tled to ex­pe­di­tious jus­tice to vin­di­cate him­self and prove his in­no­cence so that he can be re­in­stat­ed to serve the peo­ple." He said many times of­fi­cers would be sub­ject of ma­li­cious com­plaints and were sus­pend­ed. The dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ce­dure, Ram­lo­gan said, was just as a tool of ma­nip­u­la­tion, es­pe­cial­ly to sti­fle "of­fi­cers who did not find favour with the hi­er­ar­chy in the Po­lice Ser­vice. "If you were not a blue-eyed boy of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er you would face a let­ter of warn­ing or a dis­ci­pli­nary charge on the eve of pro­mo­tion in­ter­views," Ram­lo­gan said. He said such a prac­tice "con­tin­ued for a very long time in the coun­try."