Derek Achong

A Care­nage man has been grant­ed per­mis­sion to pur­sue a law­suit against the Chief of De­fence Staff over a de­ci­sion to block him from join­ing the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF) as a re­cruit.

Last Thurs­day, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed leave to Christo­pher Stanis­laus, of L’Anse Mi­tan Road, in Care­nage, to pur­sue a ju­di­cial re­view case over the is­sue.

In his court fil­ings, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Stanis­laus’ lawyers claimed that he re­spond­ed to the TTDF’s re­cruit­ment dri­ve last year, and was in­formed in writ­ing that he was se­lect­ed to un­der­go ba­sic train­ing for the T&T Reg­i­ment.

His lawyers claimed that the day be­fore train­ing was due to com­mence in ear­ly Jan­u­ary, he was con­tact­ed and told to in­stead re­port to the Coast Guard Train­ing Fa­cil­i­ty in Ch­aguara­mas.

Stanis­laus claimed that when he ar­rived he was met by a lieu­tenant, a sergeant, and a pri­vate, who told him that the TTDF had re­ceived an “ad­verse re­port” on him from the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) while per­form­ing back­ground checks on new re­cruits.

“The ap­pli­cant was not pro­vid­ed with a copy of any re­port nor was any re­port read out to him or elab­o­rat­ed up­on,” his lawyers said, as they claimed that he was told that he could no longer par­tic­i­pate in the re­cruit­ment process.

His lawyers claimed that he was ques­tioned over whether he had gang af­fil­i­a­tions and he re­spond­ed in the neg­a­tive.

Based on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the sergeant, Stanis­laus ob­tained and sub­mit­ted a let­ter from a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer in­di­cat­ing that he (Stanis­laus) had a clean crim­i­nal record with no pend­ing cas­es or con­vic­tions and a tes­ti­mo­ni­al from his for­mer em­ploy­er.

How­ev­er, the de­ci­sion was not re­versed.

“It is my con­tention that I have suf­fered a fate that is un­fair. There is noth­ing crim­i­nal known against me and I know this to be true,” Stanis­laus said in his af­fi­davit at­tached to the case.

In the law­suit, his lawyers are con­tend­ing that the ac­tion tak­en against him was un­rea­son­able, un­fair, ir­ra­tional, un­law­ful, and against the prin­ci­ples of nat­ur­al jus­tice.

Through the law­suit, Stanis­laus is seek­ing a se­ries of de­c­la­ra­tions against the de­ci­sion and an or­der quash­ing it.

Stanis­laus is al­so seek­ing the salary and ben­e­fits he would have re­ceived from Jan­u­ary if he was not eject­ed from the re­cruit­ment process.

In the event that he even­tu­al­ly suc­ceeds in his law­suit but Jus­tice Seep­er­sad de­cides against or­der­ing his re­in­state­ment, Stanis­laus is seek­ing ap­prox­i­mate­ly $1.78 mil­lion in dam­ages, which rep­re­sents his po­ten­tial loss of fu­ture earn­ings.

Stanis­laus ap­plied for the case to be treat­ed ur­gent­ly as he point­ed out that he would be au­to­mat­i­cal­ly barred from join­ing the TTDF if the de­ci­sion stands when he turns 25-years-old in June.

In rul­ing that Stanis­laus had pre­sent­ed an ar­guable case with a re­al­is­tic prospect of suc­cess at an even­tu­al tri­al, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad grant­ed a stay of the de­ci­sion to re­move him from the se­lect­ed re­cruits.

The stay will be re­con­sid­ered by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad when the case comes up for hear­ing, next Mon­day.

Stanis­laus was rep­re­sent­ed by Ar­den Williams and Mari­ah Ram­rat­tan.