Resh­ma Ra­goonath

High Court judge Mi­ra Dean-Ar­mor­er has lift­ed the in­ter­im in­junc­tion which pre­vent­ed the Po­lice Pro­mo­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Board from pro­mot­ing of­fi­cers to the rank of in­spec­tor. How­ev­er, the board is still re­strict­ed from mak­ing cer­tain pro­mo­tions, as a con­ser­va­to­ry or­der was grant­ed in the case in which 39 po­lice sergeants con­tend­ed that the board was treat­ing them un­fair­ly.

Dean-Ar­mor­er, pre­sid­ing in the San Fer­nan­do Supreme Court, on Mon­day re­moved the in­junc­tion, which was grant­ed last year by Jus­tice James Aboud. Lawyers in the case agreed to the or­der dur­ing Mon­day's pro­ceed­ings. The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, through the con­ser­va­to­ry or­der, gave the un­der­tak­ing to re­frain from mak­ing any pro­mo­tions from the rank of sergeant to in­spec­tor un­til judg­ment is de­liv­ered in the mat­ter.

Dean-Ar­mor­er is ex­pect­ed to rule on April 20. The judge gave at­tor­ney Neil Byam, who ap­peared for the State, un­til Fri­day to file writ­ten sub­mis­sions in re­sponse the state­ments filed by the of­fi­cers. The sergeants, rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Wilston Camp­bell, are con­tend­ing that they all passed the in­ter­view ex­er­cise and were placed on an or­der-of-mer­it list dat­ed March 3, 2008, rec­om­mend­ing them for pro­mo­tion.

They al­so con­tend­ed they had been act­ing as in­spec­tors for two years, but were asked to re­peat the en­tire pro­mo­tion process even af­ter they were rec­om­mend­ed for pro­mo­tion. They said it would be un­fair for them to have to re­peat the process be­cause they would have to com­pete with ju­nior sergeants who were re­cent­ly pro­mot­ed.