Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers (SRPs), Mu­nic­i­pal and Tran­sit po­lice of­fi­cers can join the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion and par­tic­i­pate in its in­ter­nal ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad is­sued the de­c­la­ra­tion yes­ter­day as he en­tered a con­sent or­der in a law­suit brought by a group of mem­bers, who were con­test­ing the elec­tions un­der the ban­ner Voic­es in Blue and pur­sued le­gal ac­tion to de­rail the poll on June 30.

How­ev­er, the po­si­tion does not im­me­di­ate­ly clear the way for the elec­tions to pro­ceed, as an in­junc­tion was grant­ed by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad. He must still rule on whether As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Anand Rame­sar should be pre­clud­ed from con­test­ing the elec­tions, hav­ing pre­vi­ous­ly served three terms on the ex­ec­u­tive—twice as pres­i­dent and once as sec­re­tary.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad gave di­rec­tions for the fil­ing of sub­mis­sions on Rame­sar’s par­tic­i­pa­tion and promised to de­liv­er his rul­ing on Au­gust 26.

In its claim, the group con­tend­ed that non-tra­di­tion­al po­lice of­fi­cers, who do not fall un­der the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), should not be al­lowed to join the rep­re­sen­ta­tive or­gan­i­sa­tion, as a rule es­tab­lished in 2023 to per­mit their par­tic­i­pa­tion was not reg­is­tered with the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al as re­quired.

In his or­der, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion’s amend­ed Ar­ti­cles of As­so­ci­a­tion, which con­tained the rule, were prop­er­ly filed with the Reg­is­trar Gen­er­al on Ju­ly 1.

Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands that last Fri­day, at­tor­neys Aaron Patrick, and Petron­il­la Bas­deo, who are rep­re­sent­ing the group, wrote to the as­so­ci­a­tion’s lawyer Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, in­di­cat­ing their client’s in­ten­tion to with­draw their claim in re­la­tion to the non-tra­di­tion­al po­lice of­fi­cers on the ba­sis of the reg­is­tra­tion, which came af­ter they raised the is­sue be­fore the elec­tion was due to be held.

In the cor­re­spon­dence, ob­tained by Guardian Me­dia, Patrick said that his clients nev­er in­tend­ed to de­bar any el­i­gi­ble mem­ber from be­ing part of the as­so­ci­a­tion.

“How­ev­er, as the TTPS is a body com­mit­ted to up­hold­ing the rule of law, the claimants’ sim­ple con­tention was that there must be strict com­pli­ance with the law,” Patrick said.

He said that his clients still want­ed Jus­tice Seep­er­sad to weigh in on the sec­ondary is­sue of Rame­sar’s par­tic­i­pa­tion based on an­oth­er of the as­so­ci­a­tion’s rules.

“It is pel­lu­cid that the is­sue con­cern­ing Mr Anand Rame­sar rais­es a se­ri­ous ques­tion to be tried and there­fore falls square­ly with­in the prin­ci­ples gov­ern­ing the grant of in­junc­tive re­lief,” he said.

Dur­ing a pre­vi­ous hear­ing of the case last week, Ram­lo­gan in­di­cat­ed that while he ini­tial­ly be­lieved that the group’s con­tention in re­la­tion to Rame­sar was cor­rect, he sub­se­quent­ly con­clud­ed that there was some am­bi­gu­i­ty with the rule, which the court would have to re­solve.

“It is not as clear as I first thought,” Ram­lo­gan said.

As part of his or­der, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad di­rect­ed that the as­so­ci­a­tion pay the group’s le­gal costs for the with­drawn as­pect of their case.

The as­so­ci­a­tion was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Aasha Ram­lal.