DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The on­go­ing pro­mo­tion process for po­lice in­spec­tors who were seek­ing to move up to the rank of As­sis­tant Su­per­in­ten­dent of Po­lice (ASP) has been scrapped. 

High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad quashed the process yes­ter­day morn­ing as he up­held a law­suit brought by In­spec­tor Mark Her­nan­dez, who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise last year. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad found that sus­pend­ed Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher and Odyssey Con­sult­inc Lim­it­ed, the con­sul­tan­cy firm hired to as­sist with the process, made mis­steps at every stage of the three-tiered pro­mo­tion process. 

He ruled that as there were mul­ti­ple breach­es of the Po­lice Ser­vice Act and as­so­ci­at­ed reg­u­la­tions, the process had to restart.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said, “This court is res­olute in its view that any mer­it list gen­er­at­ed from the en­gage­ment of a fun­da­men­tal­ly flawed pro­mo­tion process can­not be utilised and the use of same would be prej­u­di­cial to the pub­lic in­ter­est as per­sons who may not have been qual­i­fied to progress through the var­i­ous stages of the suit­abil­i­ty as­sess­ment ex­er­cise may have done so.”

While Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ac­cept­ed that of­fi­cers, who pre­vi­ous­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed and are now close to re­tire­ment, may be af­fect­ed, he sug­gest­ed they could blame Hare­wood-Christo­pher for their predica­ment. 

“The cul­pa­bil­i­ty for their dis­ap­point­ment must fall at the feet of the com­mis­sion­er as she failed to dis­charge her con­sti­tu­tion­al oblig­a­tion in re­la­tion to pro­mo­tions with­in the First Di­vi­sion,” he said. 

In de­cid­ing the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad up­held Her­nan­dez’s claim that he and his col­leagues, who par­tic­i­pat­ed, all re­ceived “out­stand­ing” grades in their an­nu­al per­for­mance ap­praisals. 

He took is­sue with the fact that Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (DCP) Natasha George de­clined to dis­close even a redact­ed list of ap­praisal grades to prove her claim that there was not a uni­ver­sal grade pol­i­cy for all of­fi­cers. 

“This court, in the cir­cum­stances, is in­clined to hold that the rea­son why no PMAS with a grade oth­er than out­stand­ing was pro­duced is like­ly due to the fact that no such PMAS ex­ist­ed,” he said. 

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that the pol­i­cy un­der­mined Par­lia­ment’s in­tent that on­ly of­fi­cers who at­tained 60 or more points in their per­for­mance ap­praisals should be al­lowed to pro­ceed to the sec­ond stage ex­am­i­na­tion. 

“This fail­ure to ad­here to the reg­u­la­to­ry man­date cor­rupt­ed the process as of­fi­cers who may not have been prop­er­ly ap­praised and who may not have had the min­i­mum score of 60 points may have ad­vanced to the pro­mo­tion­al as­sess­ment stage,” he said. 

He al­so point­ed out that the ap­praisal re­ports were on­ly giv­en to Odyssey af­ter the par­tic­i­pants sat the ex­am­i­na­tion and were fac­ing the fi­nal in­ter­view stage. 

In­ter­view pan­el did not have ‘re­quired ex­per­tise’

Deal­ing with the sec­ond stage, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that Odyssey, based on DCP George’s di­rec­tion, al­lowed par­tic­i­pants who failed to at­tain a score of 50 per cent or high­er in the mul­ti­ple-choice ex­am­i­na­tion to pro­ceed to the fi­nal in­ter­view stage. 

In terms of the fi­nal stage, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that Odyssey al­lowed par­tic­i­pants to be in­ter­viewed by in­di­vid­u­als who did not have the req­ui­site ex­per­tise. 

“The ex­press words of the statute man­date that the per­son ap­point­ed to the re­spec­tive pan­els must have the re­quired ‘skills, ex­per­tise and qual­i­fi­ca­tion in polic­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly to the rank un­der con­sid­er­a­tion’,” Jus­tice Seep­er­sad said. 

“The unau­tho­rised com­po­si­tion of the pan­els fur­ther com­pro­mised the process, as the con­tract­ed par­ty failed to en­sure that all the pan­el mem­bers had the re­quired polic­ing ex­pe­ri­ence as re­quired un­der the Reg­u­la­tions,” he added. 

As part of his judg­ment, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad crit­i­cised Hare­wood-Christo­pher for fail­ing to recog­nise the breach­es and pre­vent them. 

“The breach­es which oc­curred were nei­ther iso­lat­ed nor de min­ims, they were nu­mer­ous, sub­stan­tial, seem­ing­ly de­lib­er­ate, per­va­sive and pro­found,” he said. 

“It is al­so un­for­tu­nate that un­der the watch of the com­mis­sion­er, the pub­lic purse was charged for the con­duct of a de­fi­cient and de­fec­tive pro­mo­tion process but the court can nei­ther coun­te­nance con­sti­tu­tion­al vi­o­la­tions nor can it sac­ri­fice the need for due process at the al­tar of eco­nom­ic ex­pe­di­en­cy,” he added. 

While he up­held Her­nan­dez’s case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad de­clined to or­der com­pen­sa­tion or de­clare that his con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pro­tec­tion of the law was breached. 

He not­ed that Her­nan­dez was al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate at every stage and was not treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly from his col­leagues. He al­so said that Her­nan­dez did not suf­fer any loss that could be quan­ti­fied fi­nan­cial­ly.

He al­so point­ed out that even if the process was law­ful and fair, Her­nan­dez’s pro­mo­tion would have been put on hold as he is cur­rent­ly on sus­pen­sion while fac­ing mis­be­hav­iour in pub­lic of­fice charge re­lat­ed to the treat­ment of the sus­pects held for the ab­duc­tion and mur­der of An­drea Bharatt, in­clud­ing two who died while in po­lice cus­tody in 2021. 

Af­ter de­liv­er­ing his de­ci­sions, lawyers for the po­lice com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice re­quest­ed a stay to give time to con­sid­er an ap­peal. 

The re­quest was de­nied by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad, who point­ed to the se­ri­ous and nu­mer­ous reg­u­la­to­ry breach­es in the case. 

The com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice was al­so or­dered to pay Her­nan­dez’s le­gal costs for the law­suit. Her­nan­dez was rep­re­sent­ed by Jagdeo Singh, Ger­ald Ramdeen, Nar­isa Bala, and Dayadai Har­ri­paul. 

The com­mis­sion­er’s of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Rishi Dass, SC, Tama­ra Toolsie, and Akee­nie Mur­ray. Odyssey was rep­re­sent­ed by Owen Hinds Jr and Keisha Ky­dd-Han­ni­bal, while Kings­ley Wales­by rep­re­sent­ed the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion. 

Lawyers: Case shows dys­func­tion in TTPS

Lawyers for In­spec­tor Mark Her­nan­dez have claimed that his le­gal vic­to­ry in the law­suit over the pro­mo­tion ex­er­cise high­lights the dys­func­tion at the helm of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS).

At­tor­neys Jagdeo Singh and Ger­ald Ramdeen made the claim in a press re­lease is­sued hours af­ter High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad up­held Her­nan­dez’s case.

They said, “The de­ci­sion of the High Court to­day sounds loud to each of us that things are not right in the TTPS.

“Pub­lic con­fi­dence in this or­gan­i­sa­tion is at an all-time low while crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty is at an all-time high, the judg­ment to­day may ex­plain why.”

The duo al­so ex­pressed hope that the case would help en­sure that pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness is ob­served in pro­mo­tions go­ing for­ward.

“As a coun­try, we must in­sist that the per­sons that lead this or­gan­i­sa­tion are the most qual­i­fied and suit­able based on mer­it and per­for­mance,” they said.

“Any­thing less will risk our col­lec­tive well-be­ing, the safe­ty of our cit­i­zens and the un­der­min­ing of the rule of law,” they added.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed the Po­lice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, which par­tic­i­pat­ed in the case as an in­ter­est­ed par­ty.

The as­so­ci­a­tion’s pres­i­dent ASP Gideon Dick­son de­clined to im­me­di­ate­ly com­ment as he said he was about to en­ter a meet­ing of the or­gan­i­sa­tion’s ex­ec­u­tive.

Guardian Me­dia al­so sought to get sus­pend­ed po­lice com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher to com­ment on the judge’s find­ings, es­pe­cial­ly in re­la­tion to her, but she did not re­spond to a What­sApp mes­sage sent to her, up to late yes­ter­day.