Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
The Trinidad and Tobago Police Service (TTPS) has failed in its appeal challenging a judge’s decision to scrap the promotion process for police inspectors seeking elevation to the rank of assistant superintendent of police (ASP).
Delivering a judgment yesterday, Appellate Judges Prakash Moosai, Mira Dean-Armorer and Eleanor Donaldson-Honeywell rejected a challenge to Justice Frank Seepersad, upholding a lawsuit from Inspector Mark Hernandez in February last year.
In rejecting all the grounds of appeal raised by the Office of the Police Commissioner, the appeal panel found that it could not fault Justice Seepersad’s reasoning.
“Ultimately, we were unable to hold that the judge was plainly wrong,” Justice Dean-Armorer, who wrote the panel’s judgment, said.
The outcome means that the process will now have to be restarted afresh unless the TTPS mounts a final appeal before the United Kingdom-based Privy Council.
The appeal panel firstly dismissed allegations of apparent bias levelled against Justice Seepersad, which were based on him writing to former police commissioner Erla Harewood-Christopher related to personal security before he determined the case.
Noting that the letter was sent after attorney Randall Hector, who served as a State prosecutor, was assassinated last year, Justice Dean-Armorer found that a fair-minded and informed observer would have understood Justice Seepersad’s genuine concerns and the gentle professional tone of the letter.
She noted that Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Natasha George, who was directly involved in the promotion case, was mistakenly copied on the email by the judge’s secretary.
Justice Dean-Armorer questioned the timing of the bias allegation as she pointed out that it was only raised after Justice Seepersad delivered his ruling.
Dealing with the substance of the appeal, the panel found that Justice Seepersad was not wrong to uphold Hernandez’s claim that he and his colleagues, who participated in the promotion exercise, all wrongly received “outstanding” grades in their annual performance appraisals.
Hernandez’s lawyers Gerald Ramdeen and Dayadai Harripaul had contended that the officers should have been fairly assessed based on their individual performance instead of automatically receiving the same positive grading.
Justice Seepersad agreed as he took issue with the fact that DCP George declined to disclose even a redacted list of appraisal grades to prove her claim that there was not a universal grade policy for all officers.
Stating that his ruling was based on her withholding evidence, Justice Dean-Armorer said: “It was therefore justifiable for the judge to draw an adverse inference against DCP George that there were no non-outstanding reports.”
She did not overrule Justice Seepersad’s decision to find fault with the lack of policing expertise on the panel selected by Odyssey ConsultInc Ltd, the consultancy firm hired to assist with the process, to interview Hernandez.
She also rejected complaints over Justice Seepersad’s decision to invalidate the entire promotion process and order that it be redone based on finding breaches at every stage of the three-tiered process.
Justice Dean-Armorer dismissed concerns raised over Hernandez’s colleagues, who were affected by him pursuing the litigation.
Stating that they would only suffer delay in being possibly promoted, she said: “This detriment is outweighed by the detriment to the public interest in failing to ensure that offices of such significance are filled according to merit.”
The TTPS was represented by Rishi Dass, SC, Tamara Toolsie, Akeenie Murray, Kadine Mattew, ASP Ramdath Phillip (Head of the TTPS Legal Department) and Anya Mohan.
