Sascha Wil­son

A High Court judge has halt­ed the pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise for as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dents in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed an in­ter­im in­junc­tion in an ex parte hear­ing yes­ter­day, giv­ing the green light to sus­pend­ed In­sp Mark Her­nan­dez, for­mer head of the dis­band­ed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT), to chal­lenge the pro­mo­tion process from the ranks of in­spec­tor to as­sis­tant su­per­in­ten­dent.

Her­nan­dez, one of the in­spec­tors seek­ing pro­mo­tion, is su­ing the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

Not­ing that the mat­ter will be han­dled with “an ex­treme sense of ur­gency,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad fixed the next hear­ing for Mon­day to deal with the in­junc­tion and the sub­stan­tive mat­ter.

The in­ter­im or­der re­strains Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher or any­one else from con­tin­u­ing the pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise.

Through his le­gal team led by Ger­ald Ramdeen, Her­nan­dez claimed that at each stage of the pro­mo­tion process, in­clud­ing the per­for­mance as­sess­ment ap­praisal, the writ­ten ex­am­i­na­tions and the oral as­sess­ment, there has been “pro­ce­dur­al im­pro­pri­ety” and “di­rect con­flict with the pol­i­cy of the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment 2007, the Po­lice Ser­vice Reg­u­la­tions and Act.”

In his af­fi­davit, Her­nan­dez said he was among of­fi­cers giv­en out­stand­ing per­for­mance ap­praisals with­out a “one-on-one as­sess­ment,” and there were in­stances where can­di­dates scored well be­low the re­quired 50 per cent mark in the writ­ten ex­am­i­na­tions and still qual­i­fied for the oral as­sess­ment.

Seep­er­sad ruled that the leg­is­la­tion doesn’t give the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er “un­fet­tered dis­cre­tion” in the pro­mo­tion process.

Un­der­scor­ing that the TTPS has the “most es­sen­tial role” at this time in T&T, he said: “In a coun­try that is un­der siege, it is ab­solute­ly para­mount that we have an ef­fi­cient and ef­fec­tive op­er­at­ing in­sti­tu­tion with mem­bers at every rank who are best poised to serve the in­ter­est of cit­i­zens and to main­tain and up­hold the law.”

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said as with any ad­min­is­tra­tion body, those who hold high­er posts of au­thor­i­ty must be equipped and best suit­ed to en­gage in those lead­er­ship roles, oth­er­wise ef­fi­cien­cy and per­for­mance will be com­pro­mised.

Her­nan­dez is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­ney Jagdeo Singh.