Him­self pay­ing him­self. This was the ac­cu­sa­tion made by some po­lice of­fi­cers, who have claimed the pres­i­dent and sec­re­tary of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion have pock­et­ed union dues when they sought to stop the 21st-cen­tu­ry polic­ing ini­tia­tive.

The as­so­ci­a­tion's sec­re­tary, Sgt Michael Seales, how­ev­er, has de­nied the claims. He said nei­ther he nor the as­so­ci­a­tion's pres­i­dent, Anand Rame­sar, re­ceived "one cent." Both Seales and Rame­sar are qual­i­fied lawyers. Seales led Rame­sar dur­ing the pro­ceed­ings at the In­dus­tri­al Court on Mon­day.

The court's pres­i­dent, Deb­o­rah Thomas-Fe­lix, threw out the ap­pli­ca­tion, say­ing the doc­u­ments were not prop­er­ly filed. "We can­not pay our­selves. Any pay­ment that would be made must be au­tho­rised by the cen­tral com­mit­tee, or the Le­gal Aid Com­mit­tee, where it con­cerns le­gal mat­ters," Seales said.

He said there was a stan­dard fee of $1,350 payable to any lawyer in the Po­lice Ser­vice who rep­re­sent­ed an­oth­er mem­ber. "There is a stipend of $850 paid to po­lice of­fi­cers who are not at­tor­neys who rep­re­sent their col­leagues in a tri­bunal," Seales added. The Le­gal Aid Com­mit­tee man­ages the port­fo­lio of the as­so­ci­a­tion and has 14 mem­bers.

Dur­ing Mon­day's hear­ing, the court al­so not­ed Seales and Rame­sar, who are mem­bers of the as­so­ci­a­tion, were rep­re­sent­ing their col­leagues and told them they should in­stead hire an in­de­pen­dent at­tor­ney. But Seales dis­agreed. He said: "One of the things we un­der­stand is the In­dus­tri­al Court says that any shop stew­ard can rep­re­sent any work­er from any union.

"Rame­sar and my­self are shop stew­ards and we are al­so for­tu­nate to be at­tor­neys." The Le­gal Aid Com­mit­tee of­fers as­sis­tance:

• Where a mem­ber is charged with a crim­i­nal or traf­fic of­fence by the State;

• where a mem­ber has been charged with a dis­ci­pli­nary mat­ter;

• where the Po­lice Ser­vice has in­fringed on the rights of a mem­ber by breach of the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions 2007 or the col­lec­tive agree­ment be­tween the as­so­ci­a­tion and the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer; and

• mat­ters for ju­di­cial re­view