DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The State has been or­dered to pay a lit­tle over $200,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to two prison of­fi­cers, each, who pur­sued law­suits over a T&T Prison Ser­vice pol­i­cy bar­ring of­fi­cers from keep­ing beards.

The cas­es pur­sued by Javed Boodram and Sher­win Ram­nar­ine were up­held by High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed in March last year, but the com­pen­sa­tion to be paid to them was on­ly as­sessed by High Court Mas­ter Rish­ma Ram­rat­tan on Thurs­day.

Mas­ter Ram­rat­tan or­dered $125,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for Boodram and $130,000 for Ram­nar­ine, whose le­gal team was led by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan, of Free­dom Law Cham­bers.

Both men were award­ed $50,000 in vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages for the breach­es of their rights they suf­fered as a re­sult of the pol­i­cy.

The State was al­so or­dered to pay the le­gal costs it in­curred in pur­su­ing the law­suits.

The duo filed their cas­es in 2023 af­ter their col­league Ar­shad Singh ini­ti­at­ed a sep­a­rate law­suit over be­ing barred from be­ing pro­mot­ed for keep­ing a beard as part of his re­li­gious be­liefs as a Mus­lim.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in Singh’s case, he ad­mit­ted that he had pre­vi­ous­ly been al­lowed to keep a short beard for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons but claimed that he wrote to the Prison Ser­vice seek­ing per­mis­sion af­ter it grew longer when he went to per­form Ha­jj in Sau­di Ara­bia.

Singh was due to be pro­mot­ed to the rank of Prison Of­fi­cer II, but was re­moved from a pro­mo­tion cer­e­mo­ny in Sep­tem­ber 2022 af­ter then-act­ing pris­ons com­mis­sion­er De­op­er­sad Ra­moutar saw his beard and ques­tioned him about it.

Singh, who was rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Im­ran Khan and Sunil Gopaul-Go­sine, filed two cas­es over what tran­spired and ob­tained an in­junc­tion block­ing dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion for his beard un­til the cas­es were de­ter­mined.

One case chal­lenged his failed pro­mo­tion, while the case be­fore Jus­tice Mo­hammed con­tend­ed that the beard pol­i­cy breached Singh’s con­sti­tu­tion­al right to free­dom of con­science, re­li­gious be­lief, and ob­ser­vance.

At the end of the tri­al be­fore Jus­tice Mo­hammed, Ra­moutar’s le­gal team con­ced­ed that his de­ci­sion to block Singh’s pro­mo­tion was un­rea­son­able.

Boodram and Ram­nar­ine’s cas­es were sub­se­quent­ly up­held by Jus­tice Mo­hammed based on her find­ings in Singh’s law­suit.

In her judg­ment, Jus­tice Mo­hammed stat­ed that Ra­moutar’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the pol­i­cy was un­der­mined by the ex­emp­tions grant­ed and a lack of ev­i­dence to jus­ti­fy it.

Ad­mit­ting that poli­cies and pro­ce­dures to in­stil dis­ci­pline are laud­able, Jus­tice Mo­hammed said: “How­ev­er, those poli­cies and pro­ce­dures can­not lim­it or re­strict any prison of­fi­cer, in­clud­ing the Claimant’s guar­an­teed right to prac­tice and ob­serve one’s re­li­gion and be­lief, as the Con­sti­tu­tion is the supreme law in T&T.”

“In my opin­ion, the wear­ing of the hi­jab by a Mus­lim woman po­lice of­fi­cer while on du­ty is no dif­fer­ent from the male Mus­lim prison of­fi­cer wear­ing a beard while on du­ty, as in both in­stances those prac­tices are fun­da­men­tal in their ob­ser­vance of the Is­lam­ic faith,” she added.

In Ju­ly, Mas­ter Ram­rat­tan or­dered a lit­tle over $100,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for Singh.

The out­come in the cas­es re­lat­ed to the prison beard pol­i­cy was in stark con­trast to a case brought by PC Kris­t­ian Khan against a sim­i­lar T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) beard pol­i­cy.

Weeks be­fore Singh’s case was up­held, High Court Judge Bet­sy-Ann Lam­bert-Pe­ter­son dis­missed Khan’s case.

Khan, who was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Ram­lo­gan, has ap­pealed the out­come and is await­ing judg­ment.

Boodram and Ram­nar­ine were al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Kent Sam­lal and Vishaal Siewsaran.