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Thursday, July 31, 2025

Judge dismisses move to halt lawsuit against Cadet Force

by

Derek Achong
37 days ago
20250624
Justice Frank Seepersad

Justice Frank Seepersad

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion, yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad dis­missed an ap­pli­ca­tion from the T&T Cadet Force and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to strike out the ju­di­cial re­view law­suit brought by Ham­lyn Dip­nar­ine. 

In Feb­ru­ary, Dip­nar­ine, through his lawyers Ar­den Williams and Mari­ah Ram­rat­tan, filed the case al­leg­ing that he was un­fair­ly and un­law­ful­ly by­passed for pro­mo­tion to the rank of Ma­jor. 

Dip­nar­ine was grant­ed leave to pur­sue the case af­ter Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that he had raised ar­guable grounds with a rea­son­able prospect of suc­cess at an even­tu­al tri­al. 

The de­fen­dants filed an ap­pli­ca­tion com­plain­ing that Dip­nar­ine should not be al­lowed to con­tin­ue the case as he de­layed in fil­ing it, had al­ter­na­tive re­dress and did not raise spe­cial or ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad re­ject­ed claims that Dip­nar­ine was re­quired to file the case three months af­ter Sep­tem­ber 2022, when he claimed he should have been pro­mot­ed in ac­cor­dance with the pro­vi­sions of the Cadet Force Act. 

He not­ed that the time­line on­ly be­gan when the de­ci­sion not to pro­mote him was of­fi­cial­ly com­mu­ni­cat­ed in Oc­to­ber, last year. 

“The im­pugned de­ci­sion or omis­sion which the Claimant has sought to chal­lenge can­not be premised up­on his sub­jec­tive view as to when he be­lieved his pro­mo­tion should have been ef­fect­ed and time would have com­menced when the de­ci­sion not to pro­mote him was ef­fect­ed,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so stat­ed that Dip­nar­ine should not be pre­clud­ed from pur­su­ing the case based on the T&T Cadet Force Stand­ing Or­ders. 

Un­der Stand­ing Or­der 12(3), of­fi­cers ag­griev­ed fol­low­ing the re­sults of pro­mo­tion ex­er­cis­es are re­quired to ap­peal to the Com­man­dant, the Cadet Force Ad­vi­so­ry Com­mit­tee, and then to the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that Dip­nar­ine did not ob­tain any re­dress and as­sis­tance af­ter he made an in­for­mal com­plaint to the Com­man­dant. 

“This Court finds that in the cir­cum­stances of this case, the pur­port­ed al­ter­na­tive rem­e­dy es­tab­lished by Stand­ing Or­der 12(3) was nei­ther con­ve­nient, ben­e­fi­cial or prac­ti­cal­ly avail­able to the Claimant,” he said. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad al­so re­ject­ed claims that Dip­nar­ine had not es­tab­lished ex­cep­tion­al cir­cum­stances. 

Stat­ing that the T&T Cadet Force plays a key role in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said: “Is­sues touch­ing and con­cern­ing the cri­te­ria for pro­mo­tions to par­tic­u­lar posts in that body are there­fore of grave pub­lic con­cern.”

“With­out the es­tab­lish­ment and over­sight in the ap­pli­ca­tion of such cri­te­ria, there is the dele­te­ri­ous po­ten­tial of pro­mo­tions tak­ing place with­in the Cadet Force which reek of ar­bi­trari­ness and/or un­fair­ness,” he said. 

He said the court had an oblig­a­tion to fierce­ly de­fend the rule of law and in­sist up­on the ad­her­ence to due process and ad­min­is­tra­tive reg­u­lar­i­ty. 

“Good ad­min­is­tra­tion is es­sen­tial if pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and per­for­mance are pri­ori­tised and it is im­per­a­tive that due process should al­ways pre­vail,” he said. 

The Cadet Force and the AG’s Of­fice were rep­re­sent­ed by Na­toya Moore, Raquel Le Blanc, Sav­it­ri Ma­haraj, and Naki­ta Ali. 


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