Deputy Police Commissioner in charge of Operations Jack Ewatski is well within his rights to refuse sign a performance appraisal which he believes was unfair. This is according to former commissioners of the Police Service Commission Nizam Mohammed and Kenneth Lalla.
Making a resounding call to Deosaran to make public the details of the methods and measurements used in the appraisal performances, Mohammed said he did not believe the commission had any established procedure which it followed. "I presumed such a procedure has now been established," Mohammed said.
"I believe that the approaches must be made public so that everyone would be made aware of how this process is working and it would be interesting to ascertain how the Police Commissioner got a 'fair' grade when DCP Williams got a 'satisfactory' grade.'" He said as far was he was aware, Williams was involved in the promotion of police officers in all divisions.
"For the greater part of the period under review during that year, he spent most of his time dealing with promotions...He did little or nothing else as far as administration is concerned," Mohammed said. Deosaran was also criticised for his statements, made before a Joint Select Committee, that Gibbs' performance was unsatisfactory.
"One gets the impression that the Police Commissioner is being unfairly treated," Mohammed said. "I do not know that any one expected in a year's time that he made some kind of remarkable turnaround in the Police Service. "It is also difficult to appreciate whether the commissioner was being disrespectful as it could be well be that Gibbs was trying to be courteous by not telling the commission that they were seeking information that had to do with sensitive police information, which at that stage could not be shared with them.
"The commission has to know when to draw the line relating to the managers of the Police Service in matters which are essentially police work." Asked whether he believed the process used to evaluate Gibbs and Ewatski could have been flawed, Mohammed replied: "I do not want to comment on that, as I have a very biased view towards members of the Police Service Commission."
Expressing concerns by what he described as "publicly castigating and making serious allegations" on both Gibbs and Ewatski, Mohammed added: "I do not think there are any provisions under the law for redress which could indicate that Gibbs and Ewatski were being unfairly treated, but if that avenue has to be pursued, it should be done so by mostly the commissioner."
Lalla, who also agreed that Ewatski was entitled not to sign the appraisal given his concerns, said if the commission revealed its methods of assessment, the public could have a greater appreciation of the assessments and therefore make the entire process more transparent. "The Deputy Police Commissioner (Ewatski) is a contract officer and his terms and conditions are governed by his contract," Lalla said.
"If it makes no provisions for how an assessment is supposed to be conducted and the methods used, it remains vague and nebulous and therefore the process would be a question of interpretation." He said given such an instance, a third party would have to make a determination which would take the form of some type of judicial resolution.