Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Two days af­ter los­ing in court, for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and her at­tor­neys are ready­ing to re­turn there, af­ter her sus­pen­sion was lift­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) hours af­ter she was sent on leave by new Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Roger Alexan­der.

This ef­fec­tive­ly end­ed Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s tenure in of­fice, as yes­ter­day was the last day of her con­tract. She turns 62 to­day.

Hare­wood-Christo­pher, who was sent on 66 days va­ca­tion, signed the PolSC let­ter au­tho­ris­ing her re­turn to of­fice at 6.21 pm, hours af­ter the min­istry had in­di­cat­ed its de­ci­sion.

In a brief in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia last night, Hare­wood-Christo­pher’s at­tor­ney Pamela El­der, SC, said she will be tak­ing fur­ther le­gal ac­tion in the mat­ter.

“The next step is court. Can (Ju­nior) Ben­jamin act? I would like to see his let­ter of re­vo­ca­tion,” El­der said.

El­der ques­tioned what le­gal au­thor­i­ty the min­istry had to send Hare­wood-Christo­pher on leave, adding that since her client was law­ful­ly re­in­stat­ed yes­ter­day, act­ing CoP Ju­nior Ben­jamin’s ap­point­ment al­so au­to­mat­i­cal­ly end­ed.

Ben­jamin, who has been serv­ing as act­ing CoP since Feb­ru­ary 6, is ex­pect­ed to re­main in the post, the min­istry al­so said in a me­dia re­lease yes­ter­day.

Se­nior Cab­i­net of­fi­cials told Guardian Me­dia that the rea­son for send­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher on leave be­fore she re­ceived the let­ter lift­ing her sus­pen­sion was to en­sure she did not re­turn to work.

Af­ter her court case on Mon­day, in which High Court Judge Christo­pher Sieuc­hand dis­missed her claim and found that her sus­pen­sion was le­gal, Hare­wood-Christo­pher, ac­com­pa­nied by El­der, re­turned to the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing to take up what El­der said was her client’s “right­ful place,” de­spite not hav­ing re­ceived a let­ter lift­ing her sus­pen­sion.

Guardian Me­dia was in­formed this cre­at­ed some dis­com­fort with the PolSC, who in­struct­ed her not to re­turn to work un­til she re­ceived the re­in­state­ment let­ter.

It is the min­istry’s in­ten­tion to buy out her va­ca­tion.

Dur­ing the court hear­ing on Mon­day, it was said that the PolSC asked Hare­wood-Christo­pher to take her va­ca­tion leave in March but she re­fused.

The top cop was sus­pend­ed on Jan­u­ary 31, af­ter she was ar­rest­ed the day be­fore over al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct in the se­cur­ing of two sniper ri­fles and oth­er ac­ces­sories for the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA). She was sub­se­quent­ly sus­pend­ed by the PolSC. Hare­wood-Christo­pher spent two nights at the St Clair Po­lice Sta­tion be­fore be­ing re­leased with­out charge.

Speak­ing on CNC3’s The Morn­ing Brew yes­ter­day, Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent, ASP Gideon Dick­son, said the de­lay in giv­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher her re­in­state­ment let­ter was to en­sure there was a smooth tran­si­tion of the po­lice ser­vice lead­er­ship.

“No one can just take the post of a po­lice com­mis­sion­er just like that, there is an au­thor­i­ty which gov­erns that. So, at this junc­ture here, un­til the re­in­state­ment let­ter is giv­en, Mr Ben­jamin will act as the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice,” he said.

He said there was prece­dence for send­ing of­fi­cers who re­turned from sus­pen­sion near the end of their tenures on leave. Dick­son said as she was go­ing on leave with her con­tract end­ing, Ben­jamin will re­main in charge.

Had Hare­wood-Christo­pher been re­in­stat­ed, Ben­jamin’s ap­point­ment would have been re­voked and af­ter her con­tract ex­pired, there would have been no one act­ing as po­lice com­mis­sion­er.

The PolSC would have then had to cu­rate a mer­it list and sub­mit it to the Pres­i­dent, who would in turn re­lay it to Par­lia­ment for a de­bate and se­lec­tion of an act­ing CoP. The PolSC would then have to fi­nalise the mer­it list for a sub­stan­tive po­lice com­mis­sion­er.

Par­lia­ment, which was dis­solved last month ahead of the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, will re­con­vene next Fri­day.

With the min­istry send­ing Hare­wood-Christo­pher on leave, for­mer PolSC chair­man Nizam Mo­hammed yes­ter­day said the time had come for the com­mis­sion to be freed of po­lit­i­cal in­volve­ment.

“Once you al­low in­ter­fer­ence by the politi­cians be­yond the ve­to pow­er of the prime min­is­ter, you will con­tin­ue to cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion for un­fair­ness and pos­si­ble il­le­gal­i­ty,” Mo­hammed said.

Mo­hammed, who was fired as chair­man in 2011, lat­er sued the state and won two years lat­er. He added that Par­lia­ment should not de­bate who will be the com­mis­sion­er, but the prime min­is­ter should have ve­to pow­ers. He said if ex­er­cised, the PM should in­form the PolSC as to the rea­sons with­out it be­com­ing pub­lic.

“There must be a clear de­lin­eation of rules and the adop­tion of a pro­to­col that pro­motes con­sul­ta­tion, with­out com­pro­mis­ing the PolSC’s in­de­pen­dence; and the gov­ern­ment’s over­ar­ch­ing re­spon­si­bil­i­ties for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and the safe­ty of cit­i­zens. There has to be a con­nec­tion, and what we have to do in es­tab­lish­ing that con­nec­tion is to min­imise the pos­si­bil­i­ty of po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence, at the same time, not com­pro­mis­ing the com­mis­sion’s in­de­pen­dence and not al­low­ing for un­fair treat­ment to­wards can­di­dates who may be qual­i­fied for the var­i­ous po­si­tions that are be­ing filled.”

He added that the PolSC is one of the most po­lit­i­cal­ly in­fil­trat­ed com­mis­sions in the coun­try.