Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher has been or­dered to re­open the screen­ing process for prospec­tive of­fi­cers to in­clude those who may have been pre­vi­ous­ly ex­clud­ed due to their height.

High Court Judge Robin Mo­hammed made the or­der yes­ter­day, as he up­held a law­suit from Re­nal­do Mara­jh, of Williamsville, who was pre­vi­ous­ly ex­clud­ed from re­cruit­ment for fail­ing to meet the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice’s (TTPS) min­i­mum height re­quire­ment.

In the law­suit, Mara­jh’s lawyers, led by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, claimed that the re­quire­ment that male can­di­dates be a min­i­mum of 167 cen­time­tres in height, found in a Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tion im­ple­ment­ed in 2007, was un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

They claimed it was dis­crim­i­na­to­ry to prospec­tive can­di­dates of cer­tain racial groups, who are gen­er­al­ly short­er in stature than oth­ers. They al­so com­plained it was dis­crim­i­na­to­ry based on gen­der, as fe­male can­di­dates were re­quired to be a min­i­mum of 150 cen­time­tres.

In his judg­ment, Jus­tice Mo­hammed agreed.

“The ef­fect of the reg­u­la­tion is dis­crim­i­na­to­ry, as it im­pos­es un­equal treat­ment to sim­i­lar­ly cir­cum­stanced in­di­vid­u­als seek­ing to be re­cruit­ed by the TTPS sim­ply on the ba­sis of their height and gen­der,” Jus­tice Mo­hammed said.

“The de­fen­dant has failed to ad­vance any jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the TTPS’ im­po­si­tion of a height re­quire­ment or a gen­der spe­cif­ic height dis­tinc­tion as a pre-con­di­tion for re­cruit­ment in­to the Po­lice Ser­vice,” he added.

As part of the law­suit, Jus­tice Mo­hammed had to con­sid­er whether the reg­u­la­tion was im­mune from ju­di­cial over­sight based on the con­sti­tu­tion­al sav­ing clause, which pre­vents con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenges to leg­is­la­tion not re­pealed when the 1976 Con­sti­tu­tion was passed by Par­lia­ment as this coun­try be­came a re­pub­lic.

He stat­ed that while a height re­quire­ment was in­tro­duced in 1971, the 2007 reg­u­la­tion was not saved, as it made fun­da­men­tal changes to the pre­vi­ous po­si­tion.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed ruled that Mara­jh’s con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to equal­i­ty be­fore the law and equal­i­ty of treat­ment by a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty had been breached.

As part of his judg­ment, Jus­tice Mo­hammed or­dered $175,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for the dis­tress and in­con­ve­nience Mara­jh suf­fered. He al­so or­dered $225,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages and or­dered the State to pay his le­gal costs for pur­su­ing the case.

Mara­jh, an avid kick­box­er, filed the case in 2021 af­ter he was ex­clud­ed from a re­cruit­ment process in Oc­to­ber 2020 be­cause he is 160 cen­time­tres tall.

“I am a healthy, fit and young man who would like to con­tribute to and serve my coun­try, yet I am dis­qual­i­fied from do­ing so on ac­count of my height,” Mara­jh said in his af­fi­davit at­tached to the case.

“This is par­tic­u­lar­ly trou­bling in a mul­ti-racial so­ci­ety such as ours, as it will have a dis­pro­por­tion­ate im­pact on per­sons who, due to their eth­nic ori­gin, are of medi­um built,” he added.

In De­cem­ber last year, Mara­jh’s lawyers sought an in­ter­im in­junc­tion seek­ing to block the TTPS from hold­ing a screen­ing ex­er­cise sched­uled for the fol­low­ing month. They claimed the TTPS, through its at­tor­neys, had pre­vi­ous­ly giv­en an un­der­tak­ing not to en­gage in re­cruit­ment un­til the land­mark case was de­ter­mined by Jus­tice Mo­hammed.

In re­sponse, Hare­wood-Christo­pher de­nied giv­ing the un­der­tak­ing. She al­so claimed the TTPS was seek­ing to fol­low a Cab­i­net man­date to re­cruit 1,000 new po­lice of­fi­cers this year. She al­so point­ed out that re­cruit­ment was be­ing done in batch­es of 200, so the re­cruit­ment process could change based on the out­come of the case with­out stymieing the TTPS’ man­date.

Jus­tice Mo­hammed made the or­der to re­open the screen­ing based on Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s po­si­tion.

“In or­der to give ef­fect to this judg­ment and to en­sure that all cit­i­zens sim­i­lar­ly cir­cum­stanced to the Claimant can have a fair op­por­tu­ni­ty to be screened for re­cruit­ment to the TTPS, I am al­so mak­ing an or­der that the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er re­open the screen­ing process in or­der to widen the pool of suit­able can­di­dates from which fur­ther batch­es of re­cruits can be cho­sen,” he said.

In a brief state­ment, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, who was part of Mara­jh’s le­gal team, de­scribed the case as his­toric. She not­ed that it came af­ter an­oth­er judge found that a TTPS pol­i­cy which had pre­vent­ed per­sons with vis­i­ble tat­toos from join­ing the TTPS was al­so un­con­sti­tu­tion­al.

“Such anachro­nis­tic poli­cies il­lus­trate why new and in­no­v­a­tive lead­er­ship is bad­ly need­ed to trans­form the po­lice ser­vice in­to a mod­ern, tech­nol­o­gy-based, ef­fec­tive crime fight­ing or­gan­i­sa­tion,” she said.

She al­so crit­i­cised Hare­wood-Christo­pher and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al for de­fend­ing the case.

“It is sim­ply ridicu­lous that they would ex­pend so much re­sources on try­ing to main­tain this dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tice in a mod­ern so­ci­ety,” she said.

Mara­jh was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan, Alana Ram­bar­ran, and Ganesh Sa­roop. The State le­gal team was led by Vanes­sa Gopaul.