Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

So­cial and po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist Ravi Bal­go­b­in Ma­haraj has been giv­en the all-clear to pur­sue a law­suit over the Gov­ern­ment’s move to ex­tend the term of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher by a year be­fore she at­tained re­tire­ment age in May.

On Tues­day, High Court Judge Ricky Rahim grant­ed Ma­haraj leave to pur­sue his ju­di­cial re­view case against the Cab­i­net and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Jus­tice Rahim deemed the case fit for an ur­gent and ex­pe­dit­ed hear­ing and or­dered that it be served on the two par­ties, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC), and Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

The case is sched­uled to come up for case man­age­ment on Ju­ly 18.

In his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Ma­haraj’s lawyers point­ed out that days be­fore Hare­wood-Christo­pher turned 60 on May 15, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds an­nounced that the Cab­i­net had agreed to ex­tend her term by a year un­der Sec­tion 75 of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act.

The leg­is­la­tion em­pow­ers the Pres­i­dent to ex­tend the term of a first di­vi­sion of­fi­cer, who is due to re­tire, and the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er to ex­tend the term of sec­ond di­vi­sion of­fi­cers un­der her com­mand.

Po­lice of­fi­cers can re­ceive three con­sec­u­tive one-year ex­ten­sions un­der the pro­vi­sion.

Ma­haraj’s le­gal team is con­tend­ing that the pro­vi­sion is in­con­sis­tent with Sec­tion 123 of the Con­sti­tu­tion, which gives the PSC the pow­er to rec­om­mend the ap­point­ment or re­moval of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er and Deputy Com­mis­sion­ers of Po­lice (DCPs) to be ap­proved by the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

His lawyers point­ed out that the con­sti­tu­tion­al process sought to en­sure that there is no po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

“The Ex­ec­u­tive is not giv­en any op­por­tu­ni­ty to in­ter­fere in the ap­point­ment of the CoP and this en­sures that the can­di­date nom­i­nat­ed by the PSC would be one who would in­de­pen­dent­ly and fair­ly dis­charge the wide pow­ers of the of­fice and not be be­hold­en to the Ex­ec­u­tive,” they said.

They sug­gest­ed that the ac­tion tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment un­der­mined pub­lic con­fi­dence in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Through the law­suit, Ma­haraj is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions over the le­gal­i­ty of the ex­ten­sion as well as an or­der quash­ing it.

Ma­haraj is rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Kent Sam­lal, Robert Ab­dool-Mitchell, Natasha Bis­ram, and Vishaal Siewsaran.