DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

The way has been cleared for the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion to host its ex­ec­u­tive elec­tions.

De­liv­er­ing a judg­ment a short while ago, Jus­tice Frank Seep­er­sad re­solved a le­gal dis­pute raised by a group of mem­bers, who were con­test­ing the elec­tion un­der the ban­ner "Voic­es in Blue".

The group had pre­vi­ous­ly been grant­ed an in­junc­tion to stop the poll that was sched­uled for June 30, 2025. This rul­ing by Jus­tice Seep­er­sad clears the way for a new elec­tion date.

In the case, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad was asked to de­cide whether As­sis­tant Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (ACP) Anand Rame­sar should be pre­clud­ed from con­test­ing the elec­tion, as he pre­vi­ous­ly had served three terms on the ex­ec­u­tive—twice as pres­i­dent and once as sec­re­tary.

Jus­tice Seep­er­sad ruled that the As­so­ci­a­tion's rules on­ly pre­vent­ed mem­bers from seek­ing re-elec­tion af­ter serv­ing three con­sec­u­tive terms.

He found that as Rame­sar took a hia­tus from the or­gan­i­sa­tion af­ter com­plet­ing a term as sec­re­tary in 2019, he could now seek to be elect­ed once again as pres­i­dent.

In their case, the group al­so had ques­tioned whether Spe­cial Re­serve Po­lice of­fi­cers (SRPs), as well as Mu­nic­i­pal and Tran­sit po­lice of­fi­cers could be mem­bers of the As­so­ci­a­tion and par­tic­i­pate in the elec­tion.

In its claim, the group con­tend­ed that non-tra­di­tion­al po­lice of­fi­cers—who do not fall un­der the Trinidad and To­ba­go 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.

This as­pect of the case was re­solved as the As­so­ci­a­tion sub­se­quent­ly reg­is­tered the rule.

The As­so­ci­a­tion was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan SC, and Aasha Ram­lal.