KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

With the Op­po­si­tion rais­ing sev­er­al con­cerns about Snr Supt Suzette Mar­tin’s suit­abil­i­ty for Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice po­si­tion, Po­lice So­cial Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion Pres­i­dent (PSWA) ASP Gideon Dick­son says Gov­ern­ment needs to re­view the se­lec­tion process as the par­lia­men­tary dis­course can af­fect of­fi­cers’ rep­u­ta­tions.

Par­lia­ment ap­proved Mar­tin’s nom­i­na­tion on Mon­day fol­low­ing a de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. A vote passed with Gov­ern­ment’s ma­jor­i­ty in favour, while the Op­po­si­tion re­ject­ed it.

Ear­li­er on, Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal high­light­ed that Mar­tin was in­volved in the Brent Thomas de­ba­cle, has al­le­ga­tions of mis­con­duct against her and is cur­rent­ly be­fore the court on a dan­ger­ous dri­ving charge.

Dick­son said the dis­cus­sion was con­sis­tent with the se­lec­tion process. How­ev­er, the PSWA be­lieves the process brings a pub­lic ser­vant in­to the lime­light, where peo­ple can make al­le­ga­tions and state­ments that can tar­nish of­fi­cers’ ca­reers. Dick­son said many can­di­dates worked over 25 years in the Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) and earned their sta­tus through mer­i­toc­ra­cy. These as­pir­ing of­fi­cers have fam­i­lies, com­mu­ni­ties, and friends who see them as pro­fes­sion­als. He said politi­cians, the Chief of De­fence Staff, and the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons do not en­dure the same lev­el of scruti­ny.

“You are now tak­ing them through the scruti­ny of the Par­lia­ment, and peo­ple say any­thing which could be in­ter­pret­ed as neg­a­tive and leave a sour taste in a peo­ple’s mouths. Those are things that could de­ter oth­er would-be can­di­dates from even en­ter­ing the process,” Dick­son said.

Mooni­lal ques­tions con­duct

Mooni­lal pre­sent­ed the judg­ment of Jus­tice Devin­dra Ram­per­sad, dat­ed April 25, 2023, in the con­sti­tu­tion­al chal­lenge Thomas brought against the State. He said the court found that Mar­tin was one of three of­fi­cers who went to Bar­ba­dos and un­law­ful­ly de­tained and ab­duct­ed Thomas and re­turned him to T&T. 

“ACP Birch and those who were in­volved on the day, in­clud­ing Snr Supt Mar­tin and Cpl Joe­field, have not faced sanc­tions for their clear­ly and ad­mit­ted­ly un­law­ful acts as po­lice of­fi­cers as far as this court has been in­formed, and they have been able to con­tin­ue in their of­fices with­out in­ves­ti­ga­tion to my mind. That is a shame­ful blot on this coun­try,” Mooni­lal read.

He told Par­lia­ment he al­so re­ceived copies of mem­o­ran­dums from 2023, in which a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer made al­le­ga­tions against Mar­tin. The sub­ject read: Al­leged at­tempt by a se­nior of­fi­cer to per­vert the course of jus­tice. Mooni­lal said it de­tailed con­cerns about Mar­tin’s con­duct in in­struct­ing a sergeant con­cern­ing a par­tic­u­lar is­sue in a Firearm User Li­cence (FUL) in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Mooni­lal said he did not have a con­clud­ing re­port and did not want to ven­ture deep in­to the al­le­ga­tions.

He al­so re­called that po­lice charged Mar­tin with dan­ger­ous dri­ving in Oc­to­ber 2023 fol­low­ing a road traf­fic ac­ci­dent in April 2023 when her ve­hi­cle struck a 14-year-old school­boy along the Pri­or­i­ty Bus Route in San Juan. He said this was a se­ri­ous of­fence.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Mar­tin yes­ter­day, but she was in a meet­ing.

Hinds: These are just al­le­ga­tions

Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds re­spond­ed, say­ing Thomas brought a con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion to the court. He not­ed the cit­i­zens brought hun­dreds of sim­i­lar ac­tions against the State over the decades. How­ev­er, Hinds did not go fur­ther, say­ing the mat­ter was sub ju­dice be­cause the State ap­pealed Ram­per­sad’s de­ci­sion.

Re­gard­ing al­leged mis­con­duct, Hinds said Mooni­lal de­scribed it cor­rect­ly as al­le­ga­tions. “Suf­ficed to say, I hap­pen to know the of­fi­cer per­son­al­ly, some­thing I would not place too much stock on. I, too, re­lied on the doc­u­men­ta­tion that would have come to me. I, too, would have had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to see the of­fi­cer at work over many years.

“Most of all, I ad­mit that on this oc­ca­sion, I would have con­sult­ed with the se­nior ranks of the TTPS. I can tell you that I gleaned and gath­ered that there is sup­port for Ms Mar­tin. No ob­jec­tion what­so­ev­er in this re­gard for those dis­cus­sions,” Hinds said.

Re­gard­ing the dan­ger­ous dri­ving charge, Hinds said the Gov­ern­ment and TTPS are aware of the is­sue, and the mat­ter is be­fore the court.

Re­ject­ed can­di­date will­ing to work with Mar­tin

De­spite Par­lia­ment in­ex­plic­a­bly re­ject­ing his nom­i­na­tion, ACP Wen­dell Lu­cas says he will sup­port Mar­tin. The Gov­ern­ment vot­ed against Lu­cas’ nom­i­na­tion, al­though he was the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion’s (PolSC) top-ranked can­di­date. In an in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Lu­cas stat­ed that he did not have a rea­son for his re­jec­tion. De­spite this, he has ac­cept­ed his sit­u­a­tion and is thank­ful to the PolSC for nom­i­nat­ing him. Lu­cas said he has no con­trol over the de­ci­sion but will con­tin­ue to serve the TTPS.

“I am still a mem­ber of the TTPS and will serve in what­ev­er area or ca­pac­i­ty un­til that time the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice sees fit.

It is a dis­ci­plined ser­vice. As I said, once I am a mem­ber of the TTPS, I main­tain the lev­el of dis­ci­pline that ser­vice re­quires. If it means I have to work and sup­port the new DCP, so be it,” Lu­cas said.