Acting Prisons Commissioner Deopersad Ramoutar has emerged victorious in his lawsuit against the Public Service Commission (PSC), over its move to have a competency-based interview for promotion to the rank of Senior Superintendent of Prisons.
Delivering a decision via email on Wednesday, High Court Judge Kevin Ramcharan upheld Ramoutar’s lawsuit, which was filed before he was given his acting appointment after the retirement of former prisons commissioner Dennis Pulchan earlier this year.
In his court filings, obtained by Guardian Media, Ramoutar is claiming that the commission moved to introduce the requirement after he topped the list of candidates for promotions based on criteria set in 2014 and was awaiting retroactive promotion.
When Ramoutar first learned of the change in October 2020, he wrote to the commission seeking clarification but only received confirmation of receipt of his correspondence.
Ramoutar and his attorneys then wrote several letters on the issue and requested further information on what was being assessed in the proposed interview and the basis for it.
The correspondence was allegedly ignored and Ramoutar only received a response with the requested information on August 10 last year.
“It is an unfortunate but telling feature of this case that despite numerous correspondence being sent on behalf of a senior public servant who has dedicated his life to the Prison Service that the Intended Defendant seemed to callously and/or with reckless disregard refused to provide the Intended Claimant with either a response to his letters and/or the information and particulars which he sought,” Ramoutar’s attorneys claimed.
Ramoutar’s lawyers claimed that the information provided showed that their client and his colleagues were being assessed on far more areas of competency than used during the previous promotion exercise, which he (Ramoutar) topped.
The new areas being assessed are financial management, procurement, public sector accounting practices, project management and intimate knowledge of several pieces of legislation.
“The job description and/or specifications for the position of Senior Superintendent does not expressly require the aforementioned competencies and/or in any event the intended claimant was never informed that he needed to acquire such competencies to be eligible for the said position,” the lawyers said.
Ramoutar’s lawyers also claimed that he would be hampered by the delay in responding to his queries, as he only had a limited time to prepare for the proposed interview.
“The intended claimant is now left in the prejudicial position of having to acquire and/or familiarise himself with these elaborate and complex competencies within 13 days in preparation for an interview which carries a weighting of 30 per cent towards a candidate’s total score,” they said.
When the case was first filed, Ramoutar obtained an injunction blocking the commission from filling permanent vacancies pending the outcome of the case.
The PSC, which was still permitted to make acting appointments, as it did with Ramoutar despite his lawsuit against it, applied for the injunction to be discharged prior to Pulchan’s retirement in March but was denied by Justice Ramcharan.
As part of his decision in the case, Ramcharan issued a declaration that the commission’s decision to introduce the competency interview was irrational and unreasonable.
He also issued an order quashing the decision and the commission was ordered to pay Ramoutar’s legal costs for bringing the case.
Ramoutar was represented by Dinesh Rambally, Kiel Taklalsingh, Stefan Ramkisssoon and Rhea Khan.