Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) has been giv­en un­til 2 pm to­day to re­scind its de­ci­sion to sus­pend em­bat­tled Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher or face le­gal ac­tion.

In a pre-ac­tion let­ter sent yes­ter­day, Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s at­tor­ney, Pamela El­der SC, told PolSC chair­man Dr Wen­dell Wal­lace, “Should you fail to do so by 2 pm on Tues­day, Feb­ru­ary 4, 2025, our client shall be ad­vised to im­me­di­ate­ly ini­ti­ate Ju­di­cial Re­view Pro­ceed­ings, with­out fur­ther no­tice to you.”

The pre-ac­tion let­ter ref­er­enced an­oth­er let­ter which was sent by the PolSC to Hare­wood-Christo­pher on Jan­u­ary 31, no­ti­fy­ing her of the sus­pen­sion from du­ties.

That let­ter to the CoP stat­ed that the PolSC had re­ceived com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the DCP for In­tel­li­gence and In­ves­ti­ga­tion Suzette Mar­tin that same day stat­ing that Hare­wood-Christo­pher was “cau­tioned, in­formed that you are a sus­pect in an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice and were then in­formed that you were un­der ar­rest.”

The let­ter said in light of that in­for­ma­tion, “you must cease to re­port for du­ty and cease to dis­charge the du­ties of the of­fice of the CoP with im­me­di­ate ef­fect un­til fur­ther no­tice.”

The PolSC gave the CoP sev­en days to “make any rep­re­sen­ta­tions” as it per­tains to the com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion.

How­ev­er, in the pre-ac­tion let­ter, El­der un­der­scored that she be­lieved the PolSC act­ed un­law­ful­ly, adding that no par­tic­u­lars or ev­i­dence of the al­leged of­fence were set out in the let­ter.

El­der wrote, “It is be­yond hu­man com­pre­hen­sion, alarm­ing and gross­ly un­fair that in the said let­ter you asked our client to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions in re­la­tion to an al­le­ga­tion de­void of par­tic­u­lars.”

El­der said the PolSC’s cor­re­spon­dence to her client did not state that it was in­formed of the name of the ar­rest­ing of­fi­cer and the rea­son­able grounds for sus­pi­cion that Hare­wood-Christo­pher was guilty of the mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice of­fence.

“In the ab­sence of this crit­i­cal and nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion, it is alarm­ing that an in­de­pen­dent com­mis­sion ex­er­cised its con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­ers to sus­pend our client, the CoP,” El­der stat­ed.

El­der said for Hare­wood-Christo­pher to have been “cau­tioned” by DCP Mar­tin in­fers that there were rea­son­able grounds for sus­pect­ing she com­mit­ted an of­fence. She there­fore con­tend­ed that, “the PSC was re­quired to re­quest, ob­tain and care­ful­ly as­sess the ma­te­r­i­al which af­ford­ed rea­son­able grounds for sus­pi­cion be­fore sus­pend­ing our client. With­out such ma­te­r­i­al no im­par­tial, in­de­pen­dent, fair, just and/or law­ful de­ci­sion to sus­pend could have been made. The ab­sence of such ma­te­r­i­al rais­es con­cerns as to whether the de­ci­sion to sus­pend was made on ex­tra­ne­ous fac­tors.”

El­der said the PolSC’s de­ci­sion to sus­pend Hare­wood-Christo­pher in the afore­said cir­cum­stances is “shock­ing, un­law­ful and ul­tra vires the con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­ers of the PSC.”

She added, “As an in­de­pen­dent and im­par­tial body, charged with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­tect­ing the rights of our client, it was un­law­ful for the PolSC to sus­pend the CoP with­out hav­ing be­fore it any ma­te­r­i­al what­so­ev­er from which it could in­de­pen­dent­ly and im­par­tial­ly as­sess the ev­i­dence, if any, against our client.”

El­der fur­ther crit­i­cised the PolSC for the emo­tion­al dis­tress it has caused to Hare­wood-Christo­pher.

“Rather than act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly and pro­tect­ing the rights and in­ter­est of our client, the PolSC, by its un­mer­i­to­ri­ous sus­pen­sion, has ex­ac­er­bat­ed the pain, hu­mil­i­a­tion and suf­fer­ing en­dured by our client as a re­sult of her ar­rest and de­ten­tion. What the PolSC did was an ab­di­ca­tion of its con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ties, in that it re­lied en­tire­ly on the bare state­ment by the DCP (Suzette Mar­tin) that our client was cau­tioned and ar­rest­ed as a sus­pect in an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion,” the pre-ac­tion let­ter said.

El­der re­mind the PolSC that Hare­wood-Christo­pher was re­leased on the in­struc­tions of Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard.

“This re­lease with­out charge leads to the in­ex­orable con­clu­sion that there was no ev­i­dence that our client may have com­mit­ted the of­fence of mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice, or any oth­er of­fence,” El­der wrote.

El­der con­clud­ed the let­ter by un­der­scor­ing her client was in­formed of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion since No­vem­ber 2024 and made no at­tempt to in­ter­fere with the po­lice’s work.

“By mem­o­ran­dum dat­ed 27 No­vem­ber, 2024, DCP Mar­tin in­formed our client of the ‘on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion’ in­to the al­leged un­law­ful pro­cure­ment of firearms and ac­ces­sories by the SSA. This mem­o­ran­dum is of crit­i­cal im­por­tance. First, in the said mem­o­ran­dum, our client was not in­formed that she was a sus­pect and sec­ond, de­spite the fact that our client has been aware of the “on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion” since 27 No­vem­ber, she has tak­en no steps what­so­ev­er to ob­struct and/or in­ter­fere with same.”

Guardian Me­dia sought to get a re­sponse from PolSC chair­man Wal­lace but he did not re­spond up to press time.