Derek Achong

A se­nior fire of­fi­cer is set to re­ceive com­pen­sa­tion for be­ing by­passed for pro­mo­tion in favour of a col­league, who was his ju­nior.
On Mon­day, High Court Judge Mar­garet Mo­hammed de­liv­ered a 57-page judg­ment in which she up­held act­ing As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer Siew­nar­ine Ram­saran's ju­di­cial re­view and con­sti­tu­tion­al mo­tion law­suit against the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer, Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.
Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence, Ram­saran sought to act as Deputy Chief Fire Of­fi­cer af­ter the po­si­tion be­came va­cant in May 2019.
How­ev­er, he was in­formed that he could not qual­i­fy for the sub­stan­tive po­si­tion as he had not com­plet­ed a brigade com­mand course, which was the pre-req­ui­site for the po­si­tion.
Ram­saran's col­league Mervyn Layne, al­so a Di­vi­sion­al Fire Of­fi­cer, who was act­ing as an As­sis­tant Chief Fire Of­fi­cer, was grant­ed the act­ing ap­point­ment over him de­spite him (Ram­saran) hav­ing se­nior­i­ty in the sub­stan­tive post as he re­ceived his ap­point­ment four days ear­li­er.
Ram­saran sub­se­quent­ly com­plet­ed the course in the Unit­ed King­dom but was still not con­sid­ered for the post when Layne was giv­en a sec­ond act­ing term, ear­ly last year.
In the judg­ment, Mo­hammed not­ed that the case would set a prece­dent for act­ing ap­point­ments with­in the T&T Fire Ser­vice.
Mo­hammed ruled that the com­mis­sion's reg­u­la­tions on pro­mo­tions specif­i­cal­ly ref­er­enced ex­pe­ri­ence and not se­nior­i­ty.
In my opin­ion, se­nior­i­ty is not nec­es­sar­i­ly an im­por­tant com­po­nent in "ex­pe­ri­ence" as a non-per­form­ing se­nior of­fi­cer is not nec­es­sar­i­ly an ex­pe­ri­enced of­fi­cer," the judge.

She al­so ruled that Ram­saran could not claim that he was treat­ed un­fair­ly be­fore com­plet­ing the pre-req­ui­site course as he did not qual­i­fy for con­sid­er­a­tion un­til then.
How­ev­er, she did rule that the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer act­ed un­fair­ly as he did not in­form the com­mis­sion that Ram­saran was el­i­gi­ble to be con­sid­ered for the act­ing ap­point­ment af­ter he com­plet­ed the course.
She al­so crit­i­cised the com­mis­sion for fail­ing to al­low Ram­saran to make rep­re­sen­ta­tions be­fore they gave Layne a sec­ond act­ing term.
As part of the case, Mo­hammed was asked to con­sid­er whether the con­duct of the de­fen­dants breached Ram­saran's con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to pro­tec­tion of the law and equal­i­ty of treat­ment from a pub­lic au­thor­i­ty.
She ruled that his pro­tec­tion of the law rights were not in­fringed as he had the op­tion to bring a law­suit to chal­lenge what tran­spired, which he took.
"In the cir­cum­stances of this case, ju­di­cial re­view is the av­enue which is an ef­fec­tive rem­e­dy for the un­fair and un­law­ful treat­ment which the claimant has com­plained of as he was de­nied his op­por­tu­ni­ty to be heard," Mo­hammed said.
The judge ruled that his right to equal­i­ty of treat­ment was breached as he proved that he was treat­ed dif­fer­ent­ly from his com­para­tor Layne and there was no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the dif­fer­en­tial treat­ment.
"The claimant hav­ing dis­charged the bur­den placed on him, there was no ev­i­dence from the First De­fen­dant to jus­ti­fy the frus­tra­tion of the le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion held by the claimant," she said.
Apart from grant­i­ng de­c­la­ra­tions to Ram­saran, Mo­hammed al­so or­dered the Chief Fire Of­fi­cer and the com­mis­sion to re­con­sid­er his claim for an act­ing ap­point­ment with­in 28 days.
She al­so or­dered that Ram­saran should re­ceive mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion and vin­di­ca­to­ry dam­ages to high­light the court's dis­ap­proval of the con­duct in the case, she did not im­me­di­ate­ly make an as­sess­ment.
The par­ties are ex­pect­ed to be giv­en di­rec­tions for fil­ing sub­mis­sions on the is­sue when the case comes up for hear­ing on Au­gust 27.
Ram­saran was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Jayan­ti Lutch­me­di­al, Renu­ka Ramb­ha­jan and Alana Ram­baran.
Na­dine Na­bie, Nicol Yee Fung, Zara Smith, Avaria Niles and Rad­ha Sookdeo rep­re­sent­ed the de­fen­dants.