A High Court Judge will have to de­cide whether the pub­lic is en­ti­tled to know the names of po­lice of­fi­cers found guilty of dis­ci­pli­nary of­fences in­clud­ing dis­hon­esty. 

De­liv­er­ing a de­ci­sion ear­li­er this month, High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams grant­ed leave for the High Tide Project, a re­gion­al non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion that seeks to pro­mote trans­paren­cy in pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions in­clud­ing the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), to pur­sue a ju­di­cial re­view law­suit over the is­sue. 

In the law­suit, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is claim­ing the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice act­ed il­le­gal­ly when he re­fused to dis­close the names of such of­fi­cers in re­sponse to a re­quest made by the or­gan­i­sa­tion un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA). 

It is al­so al­leg­ing that the Com­mis­sion­er’s claim that there was no pub­lic in­ter­est in dis­clos­ing the in­for­ma­tion was un­rea­son­able and his han­dling of the re­quest was in con­flict with the FOIA. 

Through the law­suit, the or­gan­i­sa­tion is seek­ing de­c­la­ra­tions and an or­der com­pelling the re­quest­ed dis­clo­sure. 

In an af­fi­davit at­tached to the law­suit, di­rec­tor and founder of the or­gan­i­sa­tion Lee Mer­ry sought to ex­plain why he felt the dis­clo­sure is vi­tal. 

“The ben­e­fits of grant­i­ng ac­cess to the in­for­ma­tion is clear-greater pub­lic trust in the TTPS, greater ac­count­abil­i­ty, de­ter­rence of sim­i­lar con­duct by oth­er mem­bers of the TTPS in fu­ture,” Mer­ry said. 

He al­so re­ject­ed claims from the TTPS that the dis­clo­sure would be prej­u­di­cial to of­fi­cers who had al­ready faced dis­ci­pli­nary pro­ceed­ings.

“The dam­age that aris­es, if any, re­lates sole­ly to the in­di­vid­ual of­fi­cer him­self. Po­lice of­fi­cers en­joy unique pow­ers and their po­si­tions af­ford op­por­tu­ni­ties for abuse. They must ex­pect greater scruti­ny as a re­sult,” Mer­ry said.

Mer­ry claimed that from his ex­pe­ri­ence as a State pros­e­cu­tor, lack of pub­lic trust and con­fi­dence in the TTPS is en­dem­ic. 

“Abuse of pow­er in the po­lice ser­vice is rife. There is a per­cep­tion amongst many mem­bers of the pub­lic that many, if not most po­lice of­fi­cers are cor­rupt and that they look out for their own,” he said. 

Mer­ry used the ex­am­ple of a re­cent can­di­date for the post of Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er who was con­vict­ed of two dis­ci­pli­nary of­fences in­volv­ing dis­hon­esty while he was a Sergeant.  Mer­ry claimed the of­fi­cer, who is cur­rent­ly a Su­per­in­ten­dent, claimed he did not ap­peal his dis­ci­pli­nary con­vic­tions to en­sure that his pro­mo­tion­al prospects were not af­fect­ed. 

“This sug­gests that there was some sort of agree­ment be­tween him­self and the po­lice hi­er­ar­chy that if he does not ap­peal, his pro­mo­tions would pro­ceed unim­ped­ed,” Mer­ry said. 

In Ju­ly, the or­gan­i­sa­tion re­vealed the dis­clo­sure it had re­ceived in re­la­tion to 254 crim­i­nal cas­es that were dis­missed over the past five years due to delin­quent po­lice of­fi­cers.

Of the 254 cas­es that were in­ves­ti­gat­ed for dis­missal be­cause of the non-ap­pear­ance or lack of readi­ness of po­lice of­fi­cers, ap­prox­i­mate­ly 38 per cent were cas­es in­volv­ing se­ri­ous crim­i­nal of­fences in­clud­ing firearm pos­ses­sion, co­caine traf­fick­ing, shoot­ing with in­tent and at­tempt­ed mur­der. 

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so not­ed that the sta­tis­tics they re­ceived, which was di­vid­ed in­to 17 po­lice di­vi­sions and units, showed that the high­est num­ber of dis­missed cas­es in­ves­ti­gat­ed came from the North East­ern and West­ern Di­vi­sions.

The sta­tis­tics al­so re­vealed that some iden­ti­fied of­fi­cers were re­spon­si­ble for sev­er­al dis­missed cas­es with­in their unit/di­vi­sion that were in­ves­ti­gat­ed. One of­fi­cer from the West­ern Di­vi­sion had re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for 14 cas­es that were dis­missed. 

The or­gan­i­sa­tion is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Lar­ry Boy­er and Ran­dall Hec­tor.

Its law­suit is ex­pect­ed to come up for case man­age­ment on Sep­tem­ber 15.